Poems for the Autumn Equinox

And Autumn's Role in the Imagination

Dear Friends,

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. Albert Camus described autumn as “a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

Yesterday marked the autumn equinox (from the Latin “aequus,” equal, and “nox,” night). The equinox is one of the two times a year when the sun crosses the celestial equator, resulting in nearly equal daylight and darkness at most locations on Earth. It is a day of astronomical balance—the Earth's axis tilts neither toward nor away from the sun. And, of course, it marks the official start of the autumn season in the Northern Hemisphere.