O Fall, how do I hate thee?
Let me count the ways.

I hate thee for the slaughtered leaves,
sweet green symbols of Spring and Summer,
now brown and dead upon my lawn and drive.

I hate thee for the chilly nights
that make me break my own Green oaths
and burn sequestered carbon to survive
and don the altered fur of other beasts
to replace the pelts we lost to evolution.

I hate the way you celebrate belief
in supernatural nonsense:
ghosts, goblins and demons galore.

I hate thee for the darkness
now descending on the world:
the sun sinks deeper every day.

I’d sooner live on Luna, where
we’d have to burrow underground
and make our own air
but energy is free
and there is no snow.

2019