Déjà vu

I followed the quilted shadows here

to patterns cast by setting suns

and glazed with the sweet loss of

repetition. I pluck a leaf for luck

and trace its pleated edges and

rubber stem, looking for its secrets

and finding only my own.

Autumn is one of my favorite times to take photos in nature because everything is changing so rapidly. I suppose I could say that about any season, but autumn seems especially ephemeral. In fact, I was just talking about that with my students today; a couple of them had stayed after class to ask about our current essay project and, as they gathered up their winter coats and hats (yes, already! Why do I live so far north?), they complained about the weather. “Fall lasts, like, a week,” one girl said. “Then winter is for–evvver.”

We talk a lot about weather in the Midwest. I guess that’s because it’s a safe and polite topic, and we regularly experience weeks like last week, when it was 70 degrees one day and then snowed three days later. It’s worth a cliff note’s mention at least.

Anyways, I took this photo the other day on a walk. I really enjoyed the tangled leaves and wanted to put together some faintly obscure words to match the tangles. I do think the changing seasons cause a sense of déjà vu, or at least they evoke memories that don’t always have a proper place. Where do these memories hide in the meantime? I was wondering about the feeling of déjà vu, so I conducted just a sprinkle of research, and I was disheartened to see that scientists consider déjà vu to be a sort of minor brain circuit malfunction rather than something more romantic, like a dream you once had or some distant echo of a past life. I suppose I would make an awful scientist.