Is there anything more beautiful
Than the tree in fall--
With whom I am enamored, enthralled, even--
Clinging with ev'ry sap of fiber in her being
To iridescent color and majesty?

Like the ageless beauty at the party
In her ballroom gown
As all stare in awe and wonder
Before the night comes down
          And the leaves drop
          And then she, too, falls--

          Naked.

There is yellow on the leaves,
they shiver in this air, tremble
at the rain that falls
around them; it is a lovely day today

Grey hangs from the sky,
droops around the pavement so wet, rustles
the darkening daytime light
outside the window; it is a lovely day today

I sit inside this heated room
and yet, I feel the shiver from outside, I feel
the rain that hangs from this grey colored
sky, I am in awe at the yellow leaves that fall

it is a lovely day today

The lies that autumn tells
it hides in these leaves,
like a sleight of branch
you’ll be misdirected
from the dun, dying land
as you revel in amber and gold
falsehoods

nothing beats random
tree to halt life momentum
brown leaves on chill ground

I move through the woods in ritual
The trees have shed their leaves like
Third sons and eldest daughters,
They cling bravely until the wind uncurls their hands
and bears them away from home.  
A scavenger, I search them out, hold them between finger and thumb,
Their last embrace.

Sometimes I will pluck a fading life from a branch,
melded amber and crimson,
the dregs of sun in their veins,
offered in the last vibrance of summer’s heat.
At home, I press them between pages,
tiny spells of weight and gravity
cast to keep their color.
I know this magic,
Autumn and I are kindred in this,
Our eyes are the same soft green and sepia of hiraeth
cradles of remembrance,
nets always cast back into memory.
Like all memories
There are a thousand useless,
The umber of old blood, trodden underfoot,
the seconds that dripped by unmarked.
But we hold the fragile, happy few,
High upon a shelf
the glowing phosphorus of laughter
The currant red of a last kiss
Returned to and returned to
Like an unanswered prayer.

As leaves fall more
in
the wind
and
no longer watered
hanging baskets
become
leftover
summer caskets
you're still here:

you, with your never-ending arc of abundance;

making every season,

making every year.