Daylight Saving ends tonight, November 5-6, as we move into Pacific Standard Time. These are such loaded names, and the manipulation of time, of our clocks, smacks of the artificial.

Of course, we want to save daylight as the days shorten. The autumn trope is a commonplace in our thinking and expression, in literature the world over. It is autumn, the last leaves become sere and drop, a time to consider the bleakness of winter, even the winter of our discontent or old age, the autumn of our lives, which some of us, though we won't admit it, are privileged to attain.

I've been reading the Chinese poet Li Po (701-762) in a lively translation by David Hinton. Like Shakespeare, Dickinson and Frost, Li Po is acutely aware of seasons, of seasonal pivot points

SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE, THINKING OF SPRING

How many times will I see spring green
again, or yellow birds tireless in song?

The road home ends at the edge of heaven.
Here beyond the river, my old hair white,

my heart flown north to cloudy passes,
I'm shadow in moonlit southern mountains.

My life a blaze of spent abundance, my old
fields and gardens buried in weeds, where

am I going? It's year's-end, and I'm here
chanting long farewells at heaven's gate.


Most remarkable is Li Po's knowledge of where he is, here! Though he does not know where he is going, he seems on the edge of something grand, maybe better than spring's green or yellow birds' song.

So fall, even the turning back the clock an hour (consider it time saved and you better not waste it!) is a pivot point for us. It is a vivid now. What can we say from its vantage point? What do we look forward to or look back upon? Fall, especially in Li Po's poem, is an invitation to consider and to utter something, a sigh or a groan or a cheer upon getting out our familiar woolens.

I take Li Po's poem as an armature for this quickly-sketched daylight savings poem:

How many times have I seen November
again, with its unnumbered yellow leaves falling?

The road to heaven stops right here.
Here near the Willamette, my wool cap on tight,

my heart drinks cold rain, contracts to itself,
no shadow dodging me as I work in the yard.

My life is tightly ringed as any yew, my
garden cleared of dead vines and stalks. Where

am I going? It's year's end, and I'm here
muttering strange welcomes to myself.