September's Farewell Tour

On once-upon-a-time’s green hills

She lays an umber shroud

She wanders through bloom-spangled rills

And cross-hatches faint cloud

She climbs through gates, splays shadow-mates

On canvases of grass

With cinnamon and garnet shades

She gilds leafed overpass

She lingers in the tangled nook

Of sweet vermilion streams

She tarries where summer forsook

The brook where drifters dream

She dawdles in the purple dell

And decorates earth’s halls

With remnants of a fairer shell

That fell from summer’s walls

She touches orchards with a frond

Dipped in nature’s best red

She shushes thread-bare vagabonds

And tucks them into bed

Soft-slow she gathers up her gown

A strange, majestic train

Of leaf-shaped echoes drifting down

To we who yet remain

© Janet Martin