Gold Lined Streets

Nature is often my biggest source of inspiration. As an empath, I feel things very deeply. I can become overstimulated by too much social media, news (whether good or bad), and all the noise and chaos that surrounds me daily. I like to unplug, spend some time in the woods watching the leaves fall, sit very still and allow certain wildlife to approach me, or simply sit by a waterfall and listen to what it has to say.

Due to Covid, school, and my furnace breaking, I have not had the opportunity to spend time with mother nature and take in all the autumnal sensations that fill my soul. Thankfully, I follow a few photographers and live vicariously through their photographs!

I have learned that inspiration often strikes when I do not expect it. So, you’ll be hard-pressed to find me without a journal and pen somewhere nearby to catch the spilled thoughts. The other day, while logging onto Twitter to send a photo of Starbucks’ latest holiday production line to my friend, Sunny, I was distracted by a photograph.

My friend and fellow writer, Austin, author of The Return of the Modern Philosopher, holds a BFA from NYU. It is no surprise someone who went to film school knows how to take amazing photographs, and I’m grateful he has permitted me to use this photograph of a simple road and leaves that managed to inspire the poem I am about to share with you!

Austin is a phenomenal writer, and I highly recommend you check out his serials, The Vanishing Corpse, The Vanishing Santa, and The Undisputed Champions of Texas. If you enjoy crime, mystery, and humor, you are in for a real treat!

Thanks again, Austin!!

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Gold Lined Streets

Image Credit: Austin Hodgens, The Return of the Modern Philosopher.

It has been raining copiously for days now.

Rain drops falling from leaves. Leaves falling from branches.

The mist coats the town that lies on the other side of the river

And the bending roads are carpeted in autumn…

Gold and crimson line the winding way

The scenery transports you into a postcard

The kind you often find in souvenir shops.

I come in from the rain and tend to the market apples

Still resting in the farmhouse sink from their morning bath.

I tie the apron strings and put Petty on the turntable.

Twirling around the kitchen, slinging dough,

I find my element.

I dive deep in a mountain of sherpa.

A cup of coffee in one hand, a book in the other.

The intoxicating aroma of cinnamon-sprinkled apples

fills the house, transports me to nostalgic times,

and fills me with reveries of moments yet to happen

As the pastry-filled concoction of scented autumn

bakes into the delicate dessert I so passionately prepared just minutes before.

The rain and leaves still falling, past the window.

It has been so long since I have felt so relaxed…

Two days in two years before my fourth decade

Oh! Sweet November, you are so good to me.

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