Where Summer Fell

From time’s loom tumbles russet thread

Red, bronze, amber and persimmon

Before it weaves brown, brittle leaves

To what no hand retrieves; Bygone

We grapple with its arabesque

Where what is woven disappears

Half-Poems crushed and gently brushed

To wash the world in leaf-shaped tears

I want for naught but to embrace

This petal-portioned push and pull

Lest, like summer its gossamer

Unravels in spice-pumpkin tulle

From time’s loom tumbles tick and tock

In russet, gold and cinnamon

Where no one can persuade its clock

To still what it is bent upon

...and every tree, a leafed belfry

And every leaf a tolling bell

Awaits its turn to fill the urn

Of no return where summer fell

© Janet Martin