by Ren Miller

If I could give you this October day
I’d need not wrap it in a silken shawl
Nor tie it with a ribbon of chambray
Nor hang it grandly on a vacant wall.

I’d walk you through its path of yellow birch
Beside the oak and spicy sassafras
Beneath the maple where the wood thrush perch
And sing a song that summer’s bound to pass.

And as the colors fade to brown and grey
So crisp and brittle ‘neath our fervent feet
How could I give you this October day?
How could I give a gift so bittersweet?

On this October day I mean to tell,
I hope I’ve loved you warmly, full, and well.