They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia,
Opulent, flaunting.
Round gold
Flung out of a pale green stalk.
Round, ripe gold
Of maturity,
Meticulously frilled and flaming,
A fire-ball of proclamation:
Fecundity decked in staring yellow
For all the world to see.
......
Old elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made -
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root -
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without - while all within was mute.
......
Autumn was next witnessed
Through the eyes of a coquettish October,
The somnolent month that spreads fast its
Mat of diffused pleasure.
And should there be a tendril pulse,
Let it hammer the flesh of youth, who
Witnessed through the eye of a dream
The hasty coronation of Autumn —
The crowning of promises belching
......
They fall from grace to grass,
aged, scorched and dehydrated,
fluttering away further
the vanity of previous
greenness and elevated times,
reminding us of the fragility
of life,
the futility of striving to hang on
when time is up.
I know a country laced with roads,
They join the hills and they span the brooks,
They weave like a shuttle between broad fields,
And slide discreetly through hidden nooks.
They are canopied like a Persian dome
And carpeted with orient dyes.
They are myriad-voiced, and musical,
And scented with happiest memories.
O Winding roads that I know so well,
Every twist and turn, every hollow and hill!
......
In the late fall
After apple picking and around thanksgiving
When the leaves started
To fade from green to red
We’d hook up the PTO from the old Deere
To a massive circular saw
Like something out of a cult horror movie
Coated in flaking layers of leaded rust paint
And under a cloud of diesel exhaust
And the slow blue smoke
......
Desolate, windswept trees are shivery,
when red and purple leaves are falling.
Ungathered cherries hang in reverie!
Desolate, windswept trees are shivery,
engaged in multihued, cool creativity.
Goodbye violet birds skyrocket, calling!
Desolate, windswept trees are shivery,
when red and purple leaves are falling.
Opalescent leaves fall
outside summer's green door.
Outbound, a year sparkles
once age has come with grace.
Orange sun, red roses
of a starry evening.
Old age looks back, dreaming.
The air is crisp and cool
The leaves are red and gold
The trees are shedding their summer clothes
And preparing for the winter cold
......
plump red strawberries
the kind we knew last red dusk
when time inched by brusque
garnet stars flash on
scarlet leaves and cardinals
mars phenomenal
crimson dragonflies
when fruitful days are going
......