Written years ago and revised today, this seems like the perfect poem for the coming night.
Late Autumn Night
Unseen leaves skitter past
In the shadows cast by the frost-calling moon
Hung ominous in the trees:
It sings the newly cold wind–
A wind of harvest past, brown grass;
Not quite numb to the heart,
But dangerously near.
A season is dying here,
And all its bones
Are rattling along the ground,
Whispering, “Hurry, hurry, haste:
This bare gray chill is not for you–
We rush to a hopeless grave;
You are of mercy and grace:
The lamps of home.”
–Lisa Bolin Hawkins
Sisterly Kindness 