Given Time...

  

That riot of russet-bronze-red is stripped

The wind, a rogue; rowdy, steel finger-tipped

Those honeyed afternoons we stirred and sipped

Like tea, have drained their sunny, sylvan seas

From windowed walls we watch Fall’s tears run wild

They roar across the corpse of summer’s child

No more a lady-love, soft-gloved and mild

But like a train that thunders through palled trees

These skeletons that once crooned lullabies

And blurred life's lazy day with sleepy sighs

Stand rigid beneath brooding, frigid skies

Like naked minstrels waiting for their cue

The banter of a buxom, blue-eyed breeze

The baton that birthed bonny melodies

Have turned to frosted farewell eulogies

We empathize; we feel Time’s swindling too

It growls and howls in every crease and crack

A hungry predator primed for attack

We draw the knitted shawl across our backs

For we have learned that what must come will pass

And given Time the swindler will restore

To hulls culled by its hand, hope’s repertoire

And all the earth will laugh with leaves once more

Our cups refilled with mint and sassafras

© Janet Martin 

After the storm roared through a sudden lull ensued...

We are left to pick up the pieces, mostly branches though

I pulled the trampoline out of the apple tree...

and the neighbor's coverall is stripped!