Water, Wings

I have just finished reading a book 
on autumn— on the ways it alters
the quality of light and teaches

about different kinds of goodbye. 
And though I grew up in a country
where three-fourths of the year 

is scorching summer, now I know
I too must have come to learn 
of autumn early. And it is 

a country where many are always 
leaving: which means there are 
as many or more left behind. 

But after having left, what then;
after being the one that stayed?
News of another world 

still arrives at your door or flies 
through the wood at dusk toward your 
windows. At night if you set 

a clear bowl of water out where 
light can strike it, in the morning 
you might find on the surface a few

transparent wings— proof nothing
ever stays the same; is always saying
no, trying to change what's given.