Autumn part one

 And  now to play the final act

And in what other tragedy did e’er such a heroine

Die so well as Mother Nature in Autumn.

And what perverse creator deity set death within

Such glory?

But no,

No Midas turned  these green to gold in lust or fancy.

  The glory is not  for death  but in praise

Of Mother Nature’s year of work.

The harvest.


I curse these sterile rapists, that  fleece the

Golden raiment with such indignity and wish  for

Bygone days of scythe and sheath,

stook  and  Stack.

But mine they do this golden harvest and

Leave the earth  like an old man’s chin.


And  forests blaze, ignited  by the chill  of  frost

Hot colours, cold  flames that  fanned  by autumn

Gales take wings to lick and dance their way to

A quieter, windless resting  place;

Leaves come to  lie in sleepy hollows

Fill  to pools of deep crisp scrunching

Kicking toys to a child.


And  those that came to eat our summers

Humming hordes have left  like Venus to beyond

Southern shores.

And out of  Borealis sweeping curtain return

Old  friends like  Vikings they  plunder our

Bejewelled  hedgerows full of hip and haw,

The redwing and  the field  fare.


And what spirits work  their magic beneath a

Cloak of autumn mist

that  by the break of dawn

See fairy rings and stools for toads with gaudy

Caps erupt or spider webs bejewelled with dew;

And when by night  the foxes yelp and owls

Screech are the beckoning Orion to mount  the

Winter heavens as if to welcomee their hunter God.


Such poignancy a season of  happy sads, of endings of loss

As all around  lies withering, discarded

But  then what cold magic lies in winter arms

To a dormant mouse ‘tis but  three days till

Resurrection comes.