Cooling air, the senses assault
Done is the day, I’ve earned my salt.
Daytime light has turned on me
On moonlit streets such trickery
The pleasant splash, those leaves on foot
Make drunk these nostrils, nectarous soot
Pensive mood floods the mind
And of their beauty I’m truly blind
I do not think of Autumn whole
Only alms within my bowl
As you’ll see I’m leaf inspired
Though their rudiments I have mired
Autumn ring, the chilling tenors
Rejoiced and played in earthly manors
That icy rush makes cold the spirits
Yet conflagrates ye adherents
That festive smell, incense the air!
No motive o’yours ever err
And though the day leaves more hastily
These changing leaves get the best o’me
Transient seconds plump and inspir’d
Of your natural portraits I’ll never tire
The mountainside, my most treasur’d mosaic
Whatever great works, it’s more archaic
Falling to the ground, like listless colorful rain
Whether as the nemophilist, or seated behind a pane
These little souls returning to earth
Fill me with the greatest mirth
Though they exemplify an age ended
Verbiage they have transcended
I’d fill my days with gallery mileage
Gladly glut with their splendid sillage
As they flit, the stuff of dreams
In their midst, pure sophrosyne.
Day or night I’m overcome
Eyes wide open and stricken dumb
Overcome with words and tune
Bursting forth, this ideal plume
And like a flower, complex in bloom
Can’t be captured, hemmed and hewn
Vapor these words, though fall inspire’d
No due medium, pen or lyre
Untouchable this golden essence
Wealth of ideas, gone in seconds
Appropriate, it seems to me
My head, my thoughts a leafy tree
Arrives the autumn, gold and dun
Thousands escape when I reach for one
So I’ll just watch in quiet awe
The beauty whole, no hem nor haw
Not try to make that art my own
Won’t reduce it to rhyme and tone
I’ll simply revel their naïve lull
Ephemeral, yes, but never dull
Shout out happily in leafy halls
Marry to words what return my calls
Leave thou ******, in pulchritude pall
And question not what comes of fall.