A Humbling Season

 
In sunflower-frown
and berry-fall,
listing cornstalks
yield
to the gravity
 of the season,
 lettuce steeples
and goes 
to seed
and bruised
       beach plums,
    shriveled purple,
          sugar the sand,
In this time
       of rendering,
  pigments are
purged
from leaves
      and stems,
the family
woodlot
 goes thin, 
and
 you and I,
like these
  aging pines
having
pruned
   one another,
grow 
  closer.
   Now we begin
to pale
again,
preparing
       for the ego-
   less face
   of winter.