Where Time lays its golden halo
Where the chime of bluebell falls
Where frost-fretwork gilds culled fallow
Where ghost-wind and wild goose calls
Where the gambol of day hastens
To night’s gambrel, dark and deep
Where the barrenness of gardens
Blooms with echoes bittersweet
Where the way to daybreak lingers
On opaque beribboned fringe
Until dawn slips phantom fingers
Where earth and heaven unhinge
Where we walk with footsteps slower
‘Neath the cadence of farewell
Where the air is like a flower
And each tree is like a bell
Where the heart is like a harbor
And the harbor, like buffed jade
Where the grape is gleaned from arbors
And the limb weaned of its shade
Where each leaf is like a poem
And each poem pure, unflawed
Where the land is like a forum
Filled with handiwork of God
Where the russet-brindled orchard
Yields its apple-dappled bliss
Where the kiss of death broods, tortured
Autumn Is
© Janet Martin
