R. NIKOLAS MACIOCI

A Middle-Aged Man in September Yearns for Spring

He stares at the vase of plastic daffodils.  
They aren't even silk, just a polymer 
facsimile he paid five dollars for years 
ago at Kroger, but they're an enticement 
for the real thing, a reminder that winter 
lurks ahead, as unwelcome as a scolding 
from an disgruntled parent.  

Even though he relishes the way death 
makes beauty in autumn, he wishes he 
could accelerate past the next seven 
months and arrive at April's doorstep 
to see crocus and daffodils displace 
winter bleakness.  

He brushes his full head of graying hair 
in the bathroom mirror, thankful at 54 
that he hasn't had to resort to a comb-over.  
He slips into a pea coat, grabs a rake 
from the garage.  Red leaves from the giant 
oak in the front yard are ankle deep.  
There is no pattern to his sadness.  He feels 
that way when autumn weighs him down 
with a longing for something ineffable, 
something unattainable.  As he rakes, 
he thinks how he will succumb to the 
seductive power of spring as he does 
each year, be overcome with the urge 
to forgive everything, own himself 
in a way he never does at any other time 
the rest of the year.  It is a season with 
arms that will hold him for the rest of his life. 

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University, taught for Columbus City Schools for thirty years.  OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. Nik is the author of twenty-three books. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, nominated five times for a Pushcart Prize, and twice for a Best of the Net award.