Whisper of the Real Thing

Gold rush...

Fall Fresco

Spilt Gilt

Autumn’s rainbow-icing 

Drizzles from each limb 

Lobbing the enticing 

Outlines of a hymn 

Poet’s passions tangle 

With verse-vision blurred 

How can ink-drops wrangle 

Pictures into word 

Everywhere sweet autumn 

Splashes red-orange-gold 

Everywhere a poem 

Waiteth to unfold 

Tree-tress flares like candles 

Kindled by a breeze 

Before Gale dismantles 

Fall’s felicities 

Pumpkins gleam like lanterns 

Doffed of leafy thatch 

Drawing ageless children 

To its brief-staged patch 

Heaven’s awnings lower 

And retract at whim 

One moment a shower 

Then a sunshine-hymn 

Squirrels and blue-jays bicker 

Stockpiling culled loot 

Sensing Old Man Winter 

Almost underfoot 

Harvest-time is vital 

Not a wink to waste 

Awed by the recital 

Of a season’s haste 

Rivers, flecked with leaf-boats 

Lure us to their banks 

Rushes, decked in rust coats 

Stand in jumbled ranks 

Each lake dons the humor 

Of the moody sky 

Gone, the blue-eyed summer 

Like a butterfly 

Now Autumn’s fine fresco 

Starts to fall apart 

Here a thinning shadow 

There, decoupage-art 

Something starts to shimmer 

Wild with joyous grief 

Where a poem-glimmer 

Hails from ev’ry leaf 

Dearest miss or mister 

Pard the scribbling 

This is just a whisper 

Of The Real Thing 

© Janet Martin