Autumn's torches lit
Red-gold licks the mountainside
Burning without warmth...
Sparks crackle and pop
Whisked away, they dance and play,
With the winter wind.
Embers fall and fade.
Bare blackened bones left bereft
Claw the cold slate sky.
The inspiration for this is the coloring of the trees in the fall, watching the bright leaves blow, and soon fall and turn brown leaving behind the dark branches scraping at the gray winter sky... like leftover charcoal on the hearth stones.