Ah, sweet Autumn at last, and a chance to share one of my favorite poems, first published in Third Wednesday Literary Journal. May the season bring you infinite color and comfort.
November’s flush of claret-rosy cheeks
is Mother Nature’s final lusty fling
before she lets her roots go dry and white
for three bleak months of solitary sleep.
Adorned in cranberry, persimmon, beet,
she flaunts her ripened femininity
and kisses with blood orange-tinted lips
the thinning shrubs and trees of Autumn’s rest.
She hangs her flaming paper party lamps
so maple embers glow at evening’s end
when banked in cozy mounds of ashen grey
to melt the fog of day’s reluctant dawn.
And pilgrims flock to her like cardinals,
impatient for the berries that she brings
to nourish them through winter’s abstinence
with incandescent memories in hand.