Autumn’s show of strength,
Turning once great oaks
In prime of presence
And greenest splendour,
Into frail and wizened
Silhouettes on broken furrows.
Barren fields of harvest
Spent, light waning,
Dropping, pulling down
The leaves to earth, and
Drawing cold down like a
Blanket over scented soil.
Crisp auburn turn,
Spreads a coloured carpet
Of beautiful decay,
And earth’s warm womb
Opens up to incubate
And store, before winter
Steals the day in night.
Warmth, held back, will wait
Until the turn again comes;
When the seed yields its shoot,
And the slumber its sleeper,
When life erupts in softness
With the turn of the weathered
Wheel of time and season.
How the turn of autumn
Comes so beautifully fast,
Relentlessly deconstructing
Nature’s flourish until
Only echo and memory of it
Remain in the remains.