The Autumn People
(title and litany inspired by R. Bradbury)
World of stone
Ancient, difficult wood and sometimes glass
Though passageways for
Light and air are
Mostly shuttered nowadays
It is an age beyond the last
Ancient, classic, invasion, modern, after-modern
Mires of agenda
That refused to die
So that the next time had no name
No one after, either, to name in distant reason
This last time
In anarchy, all freedom’s lost
No one in safety alone
In groups of tribal bands
Joined for number
There is no core
Nothing on which to ride an atom or to
Split its parts
We came together as we could
Or nothing
Nothing, nothing, nothing
To have into grey days
Summer without
Winter long past to be accounted
No one remembers spring
This is what we are
This is what we left one season
Now only one time of year
Forever fallen
Ever falling
Who are we?
Once we were leaves
Attached, belonging to the binding of
The book of life
Where did we live?
In colors, living textures
On a primal world
What is left now?
Ghosts of patterns
What might have been
Why do we live?
It’s all that’s left
The spine is broken
We exist, barely assembled
What is left of
Dark matter, once
All light has been erased
The litany has ended
We return below ground
To sleep uneven with rude weapons
Close to our faces
Failing eyesight
Hands no longer trustworthy
In holding what is left
Into the evening of the Earth
C L Couch
https://schietree.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/imagefeeling/
clcouch123 
May 20, 2018 at 7:33 pm
This is wonderfully written Christopher. A bit sad, forlorn, intense but I like it a lot, the descriptions are great. And as always the reasoning and thought behind the words authentic and wise. We become dust, entire cultures wiped out to never be again, some not even in pottery, art, or archeological digs, and things like that.
We become dark matter, as you say, but there is light in darkness we know. In the beginning of John, it’s one of my favorite parts of the Bible — Jesus the light of the world, has always been and Is beyond temporality. He ordered the chaos, even what we know of order in a broken world is because of Him. And it’s sad, those lost warriors and people’s in the ground, clutching their weapons. Perhaps we don’t know it, but many of them are in that “book of life,” we can’t know the minds or hearts of those who are abd those we weren’t. They are gone, no trace left, as your poem says. Many of them aren’t, but we can only do what we do in our time despite this sadness and knowing for some the light is snuffed out.
Thank you for your comments this week. I hope your weekend is well.
May 21, 2018 at 12:53 am
Yes, I guess it is forlorn–heck, it’s downright dystopian. The title phrase is from Bradbury’s story SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (whose title is taken from MACBETH). My take on the Autumn People is different though still ominous. You are right to say there’s light, because there is. if everything is worldly, there won’t be much. But if we can let the spiritual in–and let the Spirit in–we’ll be all right. We’ll be much better than all right. We might be the kind of folk who inherit the Earth.
I’m thankful for your close reading. I had a cold this weekend, which I’m trying to get over. Does this mean I’m looking forward to Monday?
Have a great, new week!
May 24, 2018 at 2:31 am
Thanks Christopher. Hope your Monday and Tuesday have been better. I have to read that book by Bradbury. Someone recommended it but I keep getting it from the library lacking the time to read it lol. I liked this piece a lot, and I remember the Macbeth line. “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” It’s been a bit but I think right before they come across the witches 🙂