Turning

Spaghetti squash lies in the October garden
beneath butter-yellow flowering broccoli.
Bees still visit, bright-stripped and fuzzy,
while cabbage white butterflies float over stem and stalk.

The earth waits to be turned,
the garlic cloves to be buried,
the leaves to be gathered, scattered and spread.
Our unpruned forsythia holds a bough of apple-red leaves proudly above the ground.

The night air has us under blankets now,
and we stretch, move, and breathe slowly in the dark mornings.
In this earthly life we grow and ripen, huddle and hibernate, take root and flourish,
turning, and turning, and turning toward the light.