The Ambiguity of Autumn

Autumn is a season of transition. It fluctuates wildly between the lush full, verdancy of summer, and the bleak barrenness of winter. In New England it is a time filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It can be bright and sunny one day, heralding back to the glory days of a bygone season, and grey and desolate for the next two weeks. You just never know what to expect from Autumn! For three dynamic years, I came to know these oscillations on a weekly basis. Autumn was my part-time partner, and we shared an intense and intimate journey. In spite of our ineluctable attraction, there were plenty of good reasons for trepidation. It was, indeed, a perfect set-up. We each got just what we had asked for, but neither she, nor I, could provide each other with what we really longed for.These poems range from the gritty to the transcendent. They are extremely personal, yet universal.Spend some time with them. Let the words flow over you like a summer shower, bathing you in images, washing away your need for form, for definition. Let them seep into your bones.This collection encapsulates the richness of our time together����nd apart, echoing the abundant promise of springtime, and the exquisite pain of�宇hose last waning days of Autumn. The idea for this book arose suddenly, over the final days of February, 2010, as winter transitioned early, and quickly, into spring. The majority of these poems were written in a two-week period. It was a time of great emotional intensity and profound insight, culminating at the equinox. I would awaken in the dark at 4:30, with lines running through my head, get them down on paper as fast as I could, and often, have a poem completed before I got out of bed! I'd come back to it late that evening to craft it, whittling it down to its essence, sometimes working until 1:30 the next morning, only to be awakened a few hours later to start the whole process over again. To paraphrase Neruda, poetry had arrived, in search of a voice! These poems convey much of the turmoil of our turbulent time together during the two and one-half years chronicled here. I decided to publish this extremely intimate body of work because it demonstrates that in spite of all the emotional gyrations that Autumn and I endured, we have managed to transform our relationship, and ourselves, so that we now love each other more deeply and openly than ever. It is my wish, that what I've shared here of our journey of conscious relationship, may serve as inspiration for all who are willing to engage in this deliberate discipline of introspection and emotional honesty, and to re-affirm that it's well worth the effort!