traffic backup,
    roadwork signs.
drive down road,
    little houses
treed yards.
    brown leaves,
first sign of fall.
    kids about to go back to
school\parents
    return to work. rolling
on the seconds go,
    ticking by faster
each year so it
    seems.

cars piled up,
     to slow, won't go.
tiny dancers in the
     wind blow on to car
windows,
     another sign of coming
Harvest Season.
     people resist the clear
trademarks
     enjoying the fall,
but resenting the
     winter.

I can't understand
     New England birds,
you're housed in
     cocoons like caterpillars
that guard against the
     elements,
not freezer coldness
     that animals call home.
I'm not sure the memo
     reached you,
but this isn't the
     South.

trees like snakes,
     shed their
rainbow skins, as
    "Old Man Winter"
kicks in. the sound of
      leaves crunching, cold
on the floor under foot.
     Autumn's death has
no memorial,
     birds flying South
a eulogy.