Friday, October 27, 2017

October is the Orange Month



I was looking through my electronic pile for poems about Fall. I found this one, written a few years ago and lost in the mist of time.


October is the Orange Month

Across the back field to the woods
October is the orange month
and when the low sun lights the leaves
after a long September rain
the glow is almost like a fire
that fills the air with what one could
mistake for warmth, but no—
more like the colored sunset
that celebrates the leaving of
the light, the heat, the life itself
the bonfire of the long green day

***

Come take the October foliage cruise
come see the spasms before sleep
the end of photosynthesis
for all that is deciduous

those of us that still remain
will shelter with the evergreen
whose bitter sap and needle points
stand head bent when the winter comes
to scrub the landscape clean