Tag: Fall

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Poems

An Autumn Dell

When the thick rolling mists of September
Billow out among trees with leaves of gold
To lounge at the roots of needled timber,
And the afternoon air’s gilded with cold,

Then comes the hallowed season of autumn.
In this time, frosts rime grasses on a hill
And ice a slow stream’s course in the bottom
Of an old, majestic, and mountainous dell.

A scarlet cardinal trills in the still air
Deep within the mixed broadleaf and pine woods,
And an old croaking crow with feathers bare
Checks the soggy stump where she hoards her goods.

Shafts of dusty light pierce the canopy
To a moist forest floor littered with leaves;
This light reflects off the cobwebs’ dew
That beads the webs that ornament the trees.

It is damp, crisp, breezy.  Mushrooms abound.
Trees rot and furnish homes for worms and ants.
At dawn, the wet woodland wakes with dim sound,
And fogs seem as mournful as remembrance.

If the mist is a kind of deathly shroud,
Then drops of raw rain are like clear jewels,
Falling like crystals from high, icy clouds
To make the earth miry and fill the clear pools.

The rain and mists, the careful husbandry,
The bees’ stores of honeyed provender
Are set against the coming scarcity.
All’s precious in fall, for an end is near.

Categories
Poems

The Arrival of Autumn

The Arrival of Autumn is a nature poem with rhymes at the end of every other line. It was written in Washington state on September 7th, 2018.

Autumn Leaf
Autumn leaf, September 16th, 2018

At the end of summer when the honey drips from the comb,
when the tall grasses wave in the warm gentle breeze,
and the orchards that lie north of the farmsteader’s home
are rich with apples that hang heavy from the trees,
then the shadows begin to lengthen in the southern sun
which sets over a heartland of fields and rolling hills.
And folk feel in their bones that autumn has begun,
a time of black and scarlet leaves, brisker winds, and chills.
It is a time of fog. A time of mists among dells and valleys,
when gourds and pumpkins ripen among the pastures,
and streams flow swift, cold, and clear along the rocky alleys.
Then comes the time for hot tea, woolgathering, and a peaceful book.
Then comes the time when the black cat, its eyes like gold sparked jewels,
leaps from the wooden fencepost, and, with penetrating look,
pads across the tufted grass, past the penned up cows and mules,
on to some destination, secret or lazy or otherwise.
The days grow shorter and dimmer,
until the heavens are lit by starry orbs and the lush moonrise,
and all the earth is silvered by their fair shimmer.

Categories
Poems

We the Living Tree

“We the Living Tree” is a poem about how we’re a part of the tree of life.

Its rhyme scheme is abab.

lippi-detail_orig
Filippino Lippi – Madonna and Child with SS Jerome and Dominic (detail), c. 1485.

As a world we are a single tree
And each of us are leaves
We try to be strong and free
Still we shake in a breeze
And in a leaf’s November
When the time it comes to fall
Then it is well to remember
That spring will come to call
And although we may not see
The budding of new leaves
We’ll know they’ll come to be
After the passing of the freeze.