Fall Falling Down...and All Around

Fall trails the hem of Time’s Unknown on pastures; its attire

Scuttles down boulevards, huddles at fence-line thoroughfares

In scattered tatters; the chatter of leaves and sheaves expire

Fall’s hall is like a ballroom strewed with laughter’s empty chairs

The noise that spawned the joys of June is snuffed; summer estranged

In this strangely familiar Unfamiliarity

Like the return to childhood’s home where the walls have not changed

And everything yet nothing is the way it used to be

The door to More-of-what-has-been yet never has before

Swings wide; dawn is a bride with dreamy eyes and beaming blush

Earth teems with guests; the barrenness of autumn’s corridor

A metaphor; nature’s preacher hails from bald bloom and bush

Ecclesiastic proclamation fills earth’s promenade

Above, beneath and all around surges truth’s testament

Illustrious, new ‘good-old-days’ are waiting to be made

We, the laypeople of fall’s challenge glimpse Astonishment

The wind is restless, dashing to and fro with hasted breath

Like the flurried hurry of folk with too much on their minds

Above, beneath and all around the acrid taste of death

Spirals in leaf swirls and smoke curls; a burlesque tie that binds

© Janet Martin