When I was in graduate school and living in Atrim, NH, I was driving back home from an early morning mammalogy class at a nature center when the Writer’s Almanac came on NHPR. Garrison Keillor recited the following poem in his distinctive voice, and for me this is the perfect summation of autumn’s start:
Something Told the Wild Geese
Something told the wild geese
It was time to go.
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered – “Snow.”
Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned – “Frost.”
All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.
Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly –
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.
Rachel Field
