The river knows

...the gold and orange leaves
adorn a gateway
to the contraction of ice.
All the sweeping swallows
gone somewhere far away.
Splashing children have taken
their laughter into town
and the frogs no longer
make their urgent music.
Coyote hurries, worried.
Marmots and hightailers
are in the rocks, snuggled
into their caches.
Deer have come down
from high, flowering meadows
followed by relentless cougar
working the canyon.
The mothering Cascades,
ever colder, hold back
more and more as the rainfall
covers them in snow.