Autumn Air
There’s something in the autumn air,
Something beneath the mounting chill
Of which we’re vaguely unaware
Until it says our name, until
It softly taps us on the heart.
Something beneath the yellowed oaks
Intones a hymn in counterpart
Whose voice exults but also chokes;
Something that makes the beauty ache
(A tenderness I can’t forget…);
That makes me pray the Lord to take
My breath away—but not quite yet.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
Most oaks don’t turn yellow — they just go from green to brown. Some go scarlet briefly. Putting that aside, the last two lines were superb. And you are right: There is something in the autumn air. Dying fires? The end of brilliant colors? Intimations of mortality? Maybe all of them, or maybe something else altogether.. It’s not for me to say.
Quite a breathtaking near-capture of a phenomenon that can never be fully captured — in words or any other art — or pinned down definitively in our understanding (as C.B. expressed above). “Whose voice exults but also chokes; something that makes the beauty ache….” You may have come as close as possible to capturing it; and I and all who love autumn know, and revel in, what the poem is talking about.