After eighteen times I realized fall was my favorite.

Thunderstorms left ponds on the playground
Clear and deep and earthen.
The ground always opened in the same places.
We ran
on rainy sand, silty gravel,
tree castoffs: someone had peeled the wood
from a million sticks and branches until they were like grass
our playground was padded with them.
Afterwards, in our shoes and the palms of our hands,
We would bring them inside.

Fall is my favorite, after eighteen times.

A tree in my front yard turns flame red.
It starts from the tips, blushing faintliest pink,
burnished to crimson, seeping
like paint on a willing canvas.
I would imagine, anyway.
I saw green one day and fiery the next
Then brown, and bare thereafter.
I see the painting now, and
It is still too fast.

With every day the seasons die,
But returning, they are always alive.