Autumnal, and: Below Keats' Room, Early Morning

AUTUMNAL /DanielHalpern The first cold fog has mounted at the far end of the bay. It's being playful—it hovers, it shows itself but not what's behind it, silvers the light and makes the last hour of daylight Turner's, Pinturicchio's, Delacroix's. The birds feed now on this side of the stationary fog. The first deciduous trees fire a few leaves for effect, foreshadowing, the goodwill of the natural. It's time to start the hardwood fires for real. The truth is we don't want to go backit 's impossible to bear leaving the slow changing of leaves, the incoming autumnal fog, the oncoming weather, the slow packs of summer birds drifting south. The deck chairs have not succumbed. The cat is finally familiar with the sunlight, how it moves from room to room where she'll appoint herself at each hour of rendezvous. We don't mind relying on the fire. We don't mind the early sunset, fewer birds, fewer cars on the narrow road into town. The lights on the far shore have been extinguished as the fog advances. Only these last transitional days, about to turn. Only the firelight and this wood-heat. Only the two of us, unwilling to give it back. The Missouri Review · 11 BELOW KEATS' ROOM, EARLY MORNING ¡DanielHalpern after Wilbur I won't forget standing at the foot of that long marble stair watching the window where Severn, in silhouette, tossed the meal Keats rejected—perhaps his last fair act of criticism as he lay damp and longing for Fanny Brawne's face, his young black lungs filling, the light of the lamp aglow in his room. No one was in that place, the square had only the fountain sound, some mist and no trace of the unacceptable meal— Toss it Keats called weakly to the friend he already missed. In the Piazza di Spagna, at that hour, I heard Keats say it. 12 · The Missouri Review DanielHalpern ...