Autumn
and all that jazz

1

Slow last drag of summer’s sad trombone
sliding its airs between stark, naked trees.

Golden memories float face down in tranquil
waters, life and the summer drained away.

A voice, her voice, ripples across the pond,
echoes over drowned and mirrored leaves.

2

Grey the sky, white the birch trees:
Narcissus kneeling, dark waters flooding

Tumble-dried by this autumn sky,
leaf words falling, still her voice echoes.

3

Tintinnabulation: a tin-pan alley of leaves
blown against windscreen and car windows.

I, who a grief ago sat here watching her walk,
now sit here alone, waiting for her return.

4

Here beginneth the gospel of the fall,
the fall of all things finally into deep water.

Fall, fall asleep to the rhythmic leaf beat
that summons us all to our appointed end.

5

I who am nothing know nothing, save that I
am a burnt-out ember, cold, in a grey-ash grate.

Grating of old bones, these hips and knees,
and if I fall, sweet heart, please love me more.

Commentary:

The trees and the grass are all stressed out and we are looking at an early fall this year. So many bright berries on our Mountain Ash and Crab Apple trees. Yet the grass all dry, the hollyhocks brittle, and so many flowers dried up and gone.