Where Autumn is Life's Sister...

This morning I asked Victoria to take a picture as a keepsake of the sacred commonplace...

Of countless times in our 34 years of marriage,

Jim realizing, he could arrange his route to come by the house

to grab a coffee and breakfast sandwich etc.

giving me a heads-up call when he is almost here so he can just pull over,

trade empty containers for full ones

and carry on with a thank-you and see you in a few days...

As I turned and looked at the yard, frigid with first snowflakes

 but clinging valiantly to its glow of gold

like Woman vainly gripping the fraying edges of the garb of middle age,

 the need for this poem of why I love Autumn so much,

 washed over me...

The woo of purple blue scarves draped on skyline filigree

The curb appeal of Today, caped in Autumn’s finery

The holiness of hunger no five-star meal can assuage

The happiness of wonder too epic for ink and page

The glory of the hilltop cascading its color-roar

Like an Artist’s tipped palette immersing the valley floor

The rush of season-splendor undulating, wave on wave

An orchestra of grandeur serenading the cold grave

As sweep of rain song clinches nature’s prey to gray archives

Gold leaves like drunken finches sail from trees in wild nose dives

The sorrow of surrender and its bittersweet relief

Time’s touch, so harsh, yet tender in the binding of the sheaf

The land, a grand portrayal of meager glimpses of He

Who overflows earth’s table with fringes of majesty

The bright October afternoon poured from welkin canteen

In a mirage-collage of June’s peppermint, misty green

July’s gold wheat fields rippling, August’s aquamarine sea

September’s orchards twinkling like glass jars of rosehip tea

The poet, as she grapples with time’s ever-ebbing swell

Of blossoms turned to apples, of hello turned to farewell

The sense of Something Sacred swirling, slipping, tripping by

An elfin ballerina twirling on a splash of sky

A sentimental molding of love’s carousel of crumbs

Of holding soon enfolding what all letting go becomes

An impression of moments caught like petals in an urn

Of girls becoming women in a world of no return

Of murmurs snared from summers sparkling like a bit of brook

Through pages filled with darkling pictures tucked into a book

Where autumn is Life’s sister walking through joy rife with grief

An empathetic whisper unraveling leaf by leaf

© Janet Martin