The Return of the Equinox

Nova Scotia Fall 2002 - Photo by Charles Elliott/Beautyseer

Fall comes and I who was to be

an Equinox child now lay claim

to Virgo ways, though my soul

still lives in Libra.

Light changes, stands still

for a moment and I wonder

why I couldn’t wait for Autumn

instead was born on an afternoon

the moon in its dark phase,

the mystic’s vision inward

the Virgin gathering wheat

instead of scales weighing.

I anticipate this turn of season

this descent into darkness

to harvest, to ruminate, to learn,

to understand how to let go

a red leaf falling

falling a great distance

in order to return to the land

whose stars I was born under.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott

My mother left the U.S. when she met my father, a Canadian from Nova Scotia. Near the end of her pregnancy with me they were visiting her relatives in Detroit…I guess I decided that is where I wanted to be born and so was born two weeks early. Many years later I returned to the U.S., though born here I had never lived here until thirteen years ago. I moved to So Cal when I met Charles/Beautyseer online.

This poem is dedicated to my parents and to both of my homelands.