When all the World is Red and Gold

When all the world is red and gold

Against a gray-blue slate

When bounty gleams where buds unfold

To fill earth’s burnished plate

When lilting zephyrs start to moan

Adrift on autumn’s sway

We sense the solemn undertone

Of Time slipping away

The aster sheds its purple tear

The milkweed spills its pod

As remnants of another year

Adorns the umber sod

And from the tumbled garden; wild

With summer’s aftermath

We hear the echo of a child

Upon its trampled path

The harbinger of winter’s cold

Is such a dashing fellow

When all the world is red and gold

With scarves of orange and yellow

But as the woodland sheds its tear

In each little leaf-flower

We sense the closing of a year

Beyond this gilded hour

The daylight wanes; the eager dusk

Consumes its moody fringes

In bitter-sweetness; soft then brusque

A gate on soundless hinges

Closes; the darkness has no sound

Save for the vesper crying

In leaf-notes as they deck the ground

…another year is dying

© Janet Martin