To the people before us, it's a time filled with crackling fire,
their hands, rough and calloused, making shadows as they
clap along to beating drums and vocal tones.
The harvest is over.

To Us, the date is nothing more than a formality.
Marking past astronomers' observations on the stars
and the sun and the position of earth on a calendar.
I don't know the specifics. And if I'm right, neither do you.
The science behind the galaxy is lost on us.

What you notice first is the wind, changing on a dime
from the warm, humid air you've been loathing, to the cool,
crisp breeze that ruffles the leaves and whistles outside
your window. And it's only once it's too late that you notice
the leaves; their dead, colorless, bodies having already
fallen to the ground as a constant reminder to the trees
that a great sleep is coming.

But in a way, the date is almost perfect; it balances on the
fragile line between summer and winter; the death of
one season, and the birth of another. Any day earlier
and you're scorching, the AC working overtime as it buzzes
through your house like the pipes on your freezer. Any day later and your teeth are chattering, the sweat from your bundl and bundles of precautions freezing on your skin before before you even know of its existence.

So maybe humans were onto something,
something bigger than what the astronomers scribbled
into their studies. Bigger than the celebrations of tribes as
they got to bask in the glory of all their hard work. Perhaps
we all caught on to the importance of the first day of fall.