An Autumn Poem, With a
“Message for Jim in Syria
[Fall fell wind-wise]”

Another binary in the long list of “two kinds of people in the world”: spring people and fall people.

Sure, you can (and should!) love them both, or even make a case for summer beaching or winter snowing as your particular cup of preferred tea. But there’s a serious question to explore, I think, down there at the literal roots of the natural world: Do you identify more with those roots propulsing out new leaves in the bright glory of spring, or accepting those leaves back to earth as future mulch in the diminishing, slanted light of autumn?

Personally, while I’m always ready to be bedazzled by spring come April, my deepest sensibilities seem to lie in the half-melancholy, half-rapture of fall. All that memory-mongering, pathos, beauty-in-death, its inarguable-though-gentle insistence on having its way to pursue its appointed task in the great cycle of life.

I think fall has struck me that way since my earliest days of being a conscious, observant self, belying the otherwise sound argument that young people would naturally identify with spring, given the spring in their own steps, while older people, drawing closer to their end, opt for the solace and last blaze of glory that accompanies the season of dying.

Something tells me that contemporary poet David Roderick, barely circling around the edges of the supposed wisdom years at a mere 55, has occupied a prime seat at fall tables through his life. His lovely poem up for discussion below delves deeply into most of the time-tested themes of fall. It includes the fresh imagery we expect from poets, wrapped within the personal urgency of an elegy to his friend Jim, whom we quickly come to learn won’t be getting that message in Syria, that troubled cauldron of war and oppression, because he died there, circumstances unrevealed, the tragedy of it implicit and total in the bare fact of his absence.

Let’s read it now and we’ll come out the other side for some discussion.

***

Message for Jim in Syria [Fall fell wind-wise]

          By David Roderick

Fall fell wind-wise today—
trembles of dried lilac stalks, dead
hydrangea that couldn’t reach
water, all the finches and wrens
boldly on the move. Fall fell, my friend.
It ended summer like the last page
of the last chapter of your life.
What can I do about the turbulent
underneaths impossible to tamp down—
my yard stripped to incidentals—
sifted and judged, rearranged?
If work is sacred, as we both believed,
it also exacts a tax: the rake’s
black splinter in the heel
of my thumb, a few new blisters.
I still can’t accept life’s abandon,
how the leaves are our lives
and not at the same time,
or that the fence—its posts bearing
so much weight—are a symbol
of my own manhood
beginning to rot. I’m sorry if some
of these images aren’t tried and true.
The best pictures I’ll ever make
(and man, I wish I could text them to you)
were taken today in my yard,
my finger touching a white digital button
to capture some delight amidst
death itself, Olivia hiding inside
the great mound we gathered
despite the whipping wind, her face
bursting with joy—as she emerged
from our quarry and kicked
the leaves out, as she tossed up armfuls.

(Copyright © 2025 by David Roderick, originally published in
Poem-a-Day on October 3, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets)

***

***

Right off the bat, we have fall falling, announcing itself all the more with a wind that sets “dead lilac stalks” to “trembling.” How’s that for a stark mental image forming lickety split in your mind? There’s no dense language there, no fifty-cent words. But if you’ve ever even gazed at a fall garden, you’re right there with those dead lilac stalks and their kin, and the way they tremble and sway with even the slightest breeze.

That’s followed by another dead plant, this one with a strong hint of suffering, a “hydrangea that couldn’t reach water.”

We know that water is precious for all plants, but hydrangeas are among the thirstiest in the kingdom. The image of them searching, questing, straining but left to die reminds us that for all its beauty, fall is a cruel mistress, not about to compromise despite the agony of living things yearning for comfort from the heavens (or a simple garden hose).

Then we see birds “boldly on the move,” obeying their ancient imperatives, before we enter the zone of the human, which will occupy the rest of the poem. Now the poet grapples with the death not of a plant, however much it, too, seeks to extend its life, but of a flesh-and-blood person whose life, consciousness, memories and history are interwoven with the poet’s in a mutuality of care.

This loss of person-to-person involves drastically higher stakes, with degrees of emotion not of the quiet melancholy we often ponder through autumn’s dying leaves, but instead, waves of wrenching grief, the pain of the surviving party boring a hole that will not soon be filled, if ever.

Eased, yes, with the passage of time and sweet memory, but never without a slight grimace when that memory alights, the “irreplaceable you” of the song lyric never more apparent than when we dwell on the life of a dearly loved one, now gone.

***

The poem tells us only that Jim has died, which we are led to assume from the title was in Syria. And given what we know of that beleaguered country in contemporary history, we are right to suspect he did not die from natural causes. Roderick confirms as much, asking rhetorically, “What can I do about the turbulent/underneaths impossible to tamp down?”  That “turbulent” suggests more than plants swaying in the breeze, while the use of “underneaths” as a noun reflects a deft writer’s trick that punctuates the line, despite the hopelessness of the sentiment it expresses.

In notes to accompany the poem’s appearance as the American Academy of Poets “Poem-a-Day” feature, Roderick elaborated briefly on the fate that had befallen Jim Foley, “a journalist and war correspondent who was murdered by ISIS in 2014.” They had been “basketball buddies” and fast friends, and the surviving buddy minces no words in calling out—prosecuting, really, for a court not of this world—the “murder” for what it was.

The poem, however, then turns from the half-oblique references to a world trouble spot and spends the next lines reflecting philosophically on the passage of time and the costs attending every day above ground (“the rake’s/black splinter in the heel/of my thumb”; his fenceposts “bearing/so much weight…a symbol/of my own manhood/beginning to rot”).

But that’s only partly the story of fall, as all us veterans of philosophical musings on time’s passage know very well. Beginning to close the loop on a narrative arc as old as time, Roderick makes the most beautiful use he can of his cell phone and its “white digital button/to capture some delight amidst/death itself.”

His nod to the ubiquitous technology of his age follows as he taps that button to take “the best pictures I’ll ever make,” a wince coming right along with it in the acknowledgment, “man, I wish I could text them to you.”

Then the affirmation of continuance, presence, immersion in and habitation of the world, today, in these moments of delight with his young daughter who likely doesn’t know Syria from Florida (yet, bless her innocent heart), but knows exactly what to do with fall’s bounty in that unerring way children and their bodies gravitate to with nary a thought.

So she dives into the leaf pile, delirious with joy, and then emerges to—what else?—toss up armfuls.

Which is surely the greatest homage that Jim could possibly hope for from his pal David and the future he has placed a bet on with Olivia, the joyful.

***

***

See and hit the Follow button at https://www.facebook.com/andrew.hidas for regular 1-minute or less dispatches from the world’s great thinkers, artists and musers, accompanied always by lovely photography.

Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing

Homepage rotating banner photos (except for library books) by Elizabeth Haslam  https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/

Library books by Larry Rose, Redlands, California, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com

Heart leaf by Andrew Hidas, https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewhidas/

Dead stalks by vallgall  https://www.flickr.com/photos/mainbanana/

Leaf throw by Scott Manchester for the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, and if anyone is wondering, yes, that’s me with my then 4-year-old daughter Dakota in 2002 (and no, that’s not why I chose to write about this poem; had made that snap decision—an easy one—long before I got to the last line) 

Related Posts

Walking the Graveyard: A Poem

October 2, 2014

Love, Love We Do

February 12, 2014

“We Must Risk Delight”: Jack Gilbert’s
“A Brief for the Defense”

December 26, 2023

The Best Anti-War Song Ever

May 25, 2014