A Poem for Tuesday

Everything lets go.
The oaks and elms release their browning leaves
as Mother Earth, yearly petulant, pulls back from
Grandmother Sun.
The crickets and locusts let go
of their raucous musicmaking
and huddle down in shadowed silences
awaiting the silent white.
Everything lets go. This is
not death but surrender,
not weakness but the wise slackening
of a too-tight grip on gleaming baubles miswanted.
The sin of falling Icarus, stretching greedy fingers
for Grandmother Sun, waving his wax-stained wings,
was not pride but possession:
not that he rose too high, but that he clutched too hard: striving
to have and have and have, and not
to be.