When season-end baskets and bowls
Cradle final gleaning that tolls
With future gardens gathered in...
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When garden gourds are gathered in
When woodland awning starts to thin
When Jack Frost takes a predawn stroll
Across each frond, pond, nook and knoll
When landscapes start to don the hues
Of purple, umber, bronze and blues
When nature is like a lodestone
Drawing us from work to be done
When the wind’s kiss pinches and nips
Ears, noses, chins, and fingertips
And sunrise skies are stark and sheer
We know October’s end is near
When like a gush of waterfalls
Hearts bear a rush of madrigals
That beg for brushes, ink and page
And yet no artwork can assuage
The bittersweetness of the sense
Of bare feet shod with recompense
Driving the wearer of dues wild
With whispers of Forever’s Child
Because for all that time does steal
It leaves behind the kind appeal
Of happiness’s eager joy
Akin to a hungry schoolboy
When a brisk broom nobody sees
Chases a brood of laughing leaves
Across the stubble-stippled lea
Of summer’s silenced symphony
When apple orchards don the pall
Of Bygone’s quiet, hallowed hall
Where voices danced, drifted and rang
As pickers bantered, jived and sang
When market stands are heaped with fare
That busy, calloused hands put there
When harvest-bustle dwindles down
Turning earth into a ghost-town
When rustle-fell and footsteps merge
When want and wonder taunt and surge
When echoes stir the settled dust
Of pretty, petalled wanderlust
When joy and sorrow intertwine
Like buds betrayed by brittle vine
When golden tapers start to dim
To labyrinths of darkened limb
And front porch lights dapple the dusk
Like warm welcomes against the brusque
And brooding, lowering of eves
Awash with rain and wind-tossed leaves
When little cakes and cups of tea
Adapt an ache of luxury
And books, like patient, paper friends
Wait, where winter will make amends
When season-end baskets and bowls
Cradle final gleaning that tolls
With future gardens gathered in
To box, or bag, or crocks, or tin
As jar upon jar testifies
Of Bounty’s mercy-laden prize
And gold and green turns bare and brown
As Autumn lays its glory down
When pots simmer with supper soup
And contentment is like a troop
Of hungry helpers warmed and fed
With soup and cheese and fresh baked bread
When The Poet wrangles to rhyme
A very precious sense of time
...we ought to take to touch and taste
What none can keep yet none can haste
But simply treasure as it rolls
Like sea-song across hearts and souls
To listen to its lyrics played
Before its notes of color fade
When Mother Nature claps her hands
With final no-nonsense demands
We know October’s end is near
Ah, time enough to shed a tear
After the pangs of what must be
Become pictures in poetry
After the hatches of the land
Are battened down by a firm hand
Tucking the town and country lane
Beneath a downy counterpane
When hearths flicker, crackle and grin
While winter softly closes in
When, with the turning of the sod
We trust the providence of God
Who cups the crux of season-strains
In law and order He maintains
In the beauty that He designs
In the goodness that He refines
In the perfection of the plan
Above the ways and wiles of man
Then, with the deaths that Autumn brings
We do not fret the Yet of things
Because the Love that tolls time’s bell
Instills hello in each farewell
The appetite of hungry clocks
Insists we put on shoes and socks
Insists we turn the other cheek
For rebel-rousing rogues to tweak
Insists we yield; futile to fight
The fortitude of day and night
Insists we learn how to let go
Of No Returns that we love so
Insists on pressing crease by crease
The telltale signs of Autumn's Lease
Insists on teaching us to dress
Our naked wants with thankfulness
© Janet Martin
When apple orchards don the pall
Of Bygone’s quiet, hallowed hall..
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