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Today is the Autumnal Equinox, when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of approximately equal length across the globe. In her poem ‘Utsuroi’, writer Lee Ann Roripaugh reflects on how, as the days grow shorter, the remaining light feels that much more beautiful.
BirdNote®
Lee Ann Roripaugh: Utsuroi
Written by Mark Bramhill
This is BirdNote.
Today is the Autumnal Equinox, when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of approximately equal length across the globe. Poet Lee Ann Roripaugh writes about the changing of the seasons in a poem titled ‘Utsuroi.’
Lee Ann Roripaugh: Utsuroi is the Japanese word for evanescence, the idea that something, you know is not going to last, is made more intensely beautiful by the fact that it's going to disappear or leave.
I'm very sensitive to light — I think I'm solar powered — and at the moment where the days start to shrink a little bit and there's more dark, the light seems especially beautiful.
Utsuroi
Morning light sifts
through the window
later, more tentatively.
It takes its time pooling
and accumulating
in hot buttery squares
on the floor where
the cats love to dip
and roll themselves
as if they were succulent
pieces of lobster.
Night comes shuttering
down more quickly.
The band of light that wraps
around each day like
a wide bright ribbon
is shrinking—the way
a favorite shirt shrinks
in the dryer, leaving
the day’s wrists and hips
uncovered. A red-headed
woodpecker runs up
then down a wooden column
on my front porch
with splayed agile feet.
Periodically, it stops
to tap—head a thrumming
shiny blur like a sewing
machine bobbin. The cats
nudge the curtains aside
with their heads, and stare.
In the evening, lacy insects
with bodies the color
of green apples quiver
around the windows—
a shiver of filigree, drawn
to the light inside. Things
quicken. The geraniums
and dahlias burn their colors
into the air more brightly,
birds hurry in harried,
twittering conferences
and I think reckless thoughts.
Things quicken. Why
do I always love the light
the most only at
the moment of its leaving?
For BirdNote, I’m Mark Bramhill.
###
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. American Goldfinch ML69537721 recorded by Paul Marvin. Red-headed Woodpecker ML318656311 recorded by Laura Sare. BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote September 2025
Narrator: Mark Bramhill
ID# Roripaugh-02-2025-09-22 Roripaugh-02
