Autumn Song – a poem by Ahrend Torrey

Autumn Song



There’s no going back to summer,
to that spring. The past is fading 
and it’s beautiful, beautiful... 
The world is always healing, 

always shedding old weight, 
riding the current for Now...
Now a decision must be made: 

Will you lie and squander 
in the briars of your sorrow? 

       Or push up,  out—

       into the new life?

Ahrend Torrey is the author of This Moment (Pinyon Publishing, 2024). His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, storySouth, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature, The Greensboro Review, The Westchester Review, Welter, and West Trade Review, among others. He lives in Chicago with his husband, Jonathan; their two rat terriers, Dichter and Dova; and Purl, their cat.