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...
