The hills of Mulmur
At the Museum of Dufferin in Mulmur, Ontario, sitting on a hill and watching the autumn come.
The sun pours light in rolling fields below, the cows in pastures graze and breezes blow, in Mulmur where tall grasses fade and bend, I sit above and watch the summer end. An empty chapel sends a quiet prayer, piano chords drift out into the air, the birds take up the early autumn's words, but by the merry crowd they are not heard. The summer green has faded from the fields, the story of the season now revealed: though dry and hot, the farmers' faith commands, lest they forget "hard years shall teach good hands." As from signal fires smoky columns rise, reaching up to the blue September skies; but they are not smoke and there is no fire, just dusty clouds the autumn's chores require. We should not mourn what time has claimed must be, so here at last the dust has come for me; the letting go, it is a gentle spell, these are the days that let us say farewell.
Published in In the Hills magazine, Winter 2025