On the equinox

Our Japanese maple tree in autumn

Today is the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, the first official day of fall, when for a few brief periods the hours of daylight and darkness are almost equal as the sun crosses the celestial equator.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Here, where I live in the Bay Area, it’s more about the quality of light, how it shifts as the sun slants toward winter, than it is about falling temperatures—although this past week, a cold front came through and the fog swirled through the hills and the air had a chill. In the autumn, there’s a golden hue to the air that I love, even though it can be quite warm in October. The leaves are slow to change color, but they do shift and there are spots that are magical.

This week’s poem¹ was written about an autumnal equinox many years ago. It’s a poem about the equinoxes of our lives, about falling apart and moving on.

On the Equinox

Pressed with the blond 
ghosts of maple leaves 
the plate, glazed smoke blue, 
still hangs above the fireplace 
as it did when I lived here 
with you. Last night 

you phoned from Guerneville 
where you and your girlfriend
are spending a week. 
You asked me to check 
our cat, the one who 
climbed to the top of your head 
and we named her Tenzing Norgay. 
The cat sitter had phoned you, 
said the cat couldn’t walk. 
You spoke of blood tests and 
high levels of calcium indicating 
cancer’s spread. 

I let myself in with an extra key 
you had hidden in a hollow frog. 
I lie next to our cat who is dying, 
her head, which I stroke, 
smaller than the palm of my hand. 
Phoning the number you gave me,
I wonder if she will answer, 
the girlfriend, what she
thinks of my being here, 
the ex-wife, saying, come home now, 
Mark, she’s not going to last. 
I place the phone in its cradle. 

You hadn’t told me the cat was sick; 
two years apart and our lives 
are separate. I bend over 
to kiss her head. Across 
from where I sit, the plate, 
a wedding gift from your sister,
offers the remains of autumn and 
another leaf, dipped in gold, 
recently glued to its edge.

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1. “On the Equinox,” was first published in 2008 in Open Windows III: An Anthology of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays, Third Prize.