When we can no longer walk together—
a long time from now, please—

circumnavigating your park-like
homeplace abundant with trees,

so many of them now loosening leaves,
littering the crewcut lawns with

every manner of foliage from hefty
blushing trefoils to delicate gold fans.

You have seen eight decades of autumns.
I have six and a half decades of falls.

Mostly we have managed to remain
upright. But as we see others fall in

their late seasons, and have weathered
a few ourselves, we know well not to take

any of this vertical time in the world for
granted. So we linger over light speckling

through canopies that will soon stand bare
or beam a starburst right at us. I never tire

of watching you aim a tiny device you
never would have called a camera in your

younger years at a luminous moment
from a small bridge, at fountaining water,

taking in the reflection of what the trees hold
for now. For now.