Waxing poetic

There is a certain slant to the light these days. It isn't quite the low sunlight of fall, but nearly. I notice it at odd moments of the day when a slight breeze chills the sunshine for a moment or a vee of geese honk overhead. We have one silly yellow chrysanthemum that blooms by the front door every year, ultimately falling on its face from the weight of its own flower. It's the last of the flowers in our yard - the geraniums have bolted and grown leggy, the lavender is a pale bushy shadow of its former glory, the delicate pink petunias are almost completely smothered by the pumpkin vines. Everything is brown and tired, ready to defer to the zingy colors of true autumn where the leaves steal the show and the flowers take a welcome backseat. Autumn always puts me in a contemplative mood; my brain recalls snatches of poems from my college days when Professor Greene recited Wyatt and Surrey and made all us girls melt into puddles of adoration. For now I will reread "Whoso List To Hunt" and prop up the mum to catch the last of its summer yellowness.