Autumn... (with a bit 'o Butter, Salt and Pepper)

This poem started with a bit o' squash,

stubble

 and silk...

The milkweed pod is plump, like mini-pillows stuffed with silk

The landscape, Nature’s Magnum Opus leaves the heart agape

The wind, a minstrel strumming brittle strings of corn-stalk ilk

The field, a street of stubble-gold a-wash with twilight’s cape

Autumn unfurls its wonder-world in leaf-shaped plunder, oh

Autumn undoes the awning of the woodland’s pantheon

Autumn unravels tree tops in a storm of auburn snow

Autumn is a buffet of marmalade and cinnamon

The hill is like a pedestal showcasing Frames of Fall

The dell is like a cradle where farewells of summer sleep

The brook bulges with babble of petal-flecked madrigal

The garden is an echo-land of laughter and bare feet

Autumn arranges pictures on earth’s sky-wide window-sill

Autumn exchanges green-leaf gilt for vermilion appeal

Autumn estranges us from sweat-drenched brow with sassy chill

Autumn eclipses expectation with its color-wheel

The pumpkin basks in glow of short-lived popularity

The apple is a super-star blushing ‘neath Jack Frost’s kiss

The spud is full of finest supper-possibility

The squash and rutabaga boast of roasted veggie-bliss

Autumn ushers in evenings of fireside and tea

Autumn returns the curlicue of smoke to chimney flues

Autumn restores the shoreline to the lone roar of the sea

Autumn lowers the bars of dusk with brusque and brooding blues

The morning wakes in soft plum tulle, rain-gray or silver frost

The afternoon is steeped in flavors no caldron can snare

The evening tumbles in and soon the darling day is lost

Beneath a big umbrella black as coal and light as air

Autumn scatters its notes across a tattered music sheet

Autumn shatters the coppice where a dirge-like silence falls

Autumn pit-pitter-patters on the roof like pixy feet

Autumn composes ballads for a ballroom without walls

The turkey finds no place to hide; its numbered days are spent

The porch is mum and jack-o-lantern pretty-as-can-be

The blue-jay bullies smaller prey, greedy and discontent

He dominates the bird-feeder without apology

Autumn graces the places and faces where footsteps slow

Autumn erases cricket-song; it tweaks tan cheeks to pink

Autumn throbs like a rhapsody written long, long ago

Where we are all still smitten by The Hand that spills the ink

The oven fills the kitchen with warm welcome without words

The cellar groans with goodness waiting to turn to ‘delish’

Ah, who could guess what homey happiness hides in plain gourds

A bit ‘o butter, salt and pepper make a five-star dish

Autumn rouses a raging appetite for love, it seems

Autumn authors a sorrow full of joy for summer’s splash

Autumn evokes a somber sort of tug of worn-out dreams

Autumn stokes musky embers with a rake that turns to ash

© Janet Martin

With a pic for almost every line it was hard to pic/pick only a few...