I wrote "Dying Back" after several days of walking through my neighborhood, and sitting on our porch watching the beauty of autumn. It struck me, as I say in the poem, that the process . . .
. . . ordered by an ancient
call: earth and her creatures
loosing what they love to die back
into winter
I don't understand it, and maybe they don't either, but . . .
Every autumn
their goodbyes ravish our eyes
with color.
* * *
Patrick Cabello Hansel is the author of the poetry collections The Devouring Land (Main Street Rag Publishing) and Quitting Time (Atmosphere Press). He has published poems and prose in more than 70 journals and has received awards from the Loft Literary Center and Minnesota State Arts Board.
Poetry, Prose Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction
in Bacopa Literary Review 2021
