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This Autumn Morning
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Gray with
A patch
Of red
Inside black
Branches
Red leaves
Attached
Maybe until
A winter wind
Comes to
Take them
Through the
Air until the
Breath’s expired
Then gravity
Must have
Its way and
Like the roots
We can see
And-or touch
Must lie upon the
Earth
And inside
For a while
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C L Couch
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Joshua Tree National Park
Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash
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Slight Season
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The sun is out
I should be going to it
There might be chill
It might be fall
At last
Not too soon to winter, please,
Which is the trouble
With the seasons in-between
Their timing seems so fragile
When
Arriving
Surprising, when it seems
They stay a good, long while
Leaving the severities
To themselves
And their own time
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C L Couch
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Photo by Jana Shnipelson on Unsplash
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Look Now
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I pulled on the window shade
The old-fashioned kind
I got stuck with
Gray all around
I suspect another strange fall day
Too hot in the eastern USA
This year
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It takes a couple tugs
But without the absurd length
That it can get to,
The shade goes up
And it might be too hot
But the leaves that look at me
Inches from the glass
Are autumn first
Colors mixed with summer green
Red and orange, yellow
All say hi
(green sighs)
We are here
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It is the season, anyway
And I am thankful
Whose formality comes
Later on
With cornucopia
Thick tablecloths
And such
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And while there is no peace
There is small, sustaining
Joy
In nature’s
Hello in the season
Outside
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C L Couch
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Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash
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Fifth Day
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It’s Friday
And we face the weekend
An invention that started with
Reform laws
For factories
I hope you have a grand time:
Play
Find a moment in which
To be grateful
For reformers
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If you are having fall
I hope it is the right kind for you
Colors
A degree of chill,
Wind that speaks
And, when not speaking,
Sings;
If it is spring for you
I hope you find new life
The right intensities
Of green and blue
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If there is a sabbath service for you
I hope you find God at home
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C L Couch
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Photo by Oliver Hihn on Unsplash
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Equinoxic
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Is it really in the sixties?
That is so nice
Today or tomorrow
Is the equinox
And fall will be official
We want it to be fall, I think
The leaves to turn
The air to be a challenge
Time for coats
And yellow schoolbuses
Easier to see
Take care
Autumn has its challenges
Practice looking out
For trick-or-treaters
First frost
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C L Couch
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in the northeast of the USA, northern hemisphere
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I looked at the temperature and said to myself the first two lines
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Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
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Spice
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The flowers
They are ending, I suppose
The ones of summer,
While chrysanthemums
Are having their time outside,
This time
Their time
And we pause and pause
Maybe because it’s raining
Or it’s cold for the first
Time in a while
I’m speaking to where I live,
Which is in eastern Pennsylvania
In the middle of the
MidAtlantic, USA
Wherever you might be,
It’s fall up north
And spring down south where
The flowers that are dying
Here would rather be
So that their color
And their smoother shapes
Might go on,
Though I imagine in a relentless season
There would be end to
Flowers, anyway
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Here, the chrysanthemums
Shall have their way
For a while
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C L Couch
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Photo by Nadiya Ploschenko on Unsplash
today’s mood
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Contact
The markers of the season have
Arrived:
Cold rain, color in the leaves
Paradox in brilliance dying
It’s in our lore;
It’s why we conflagrate the phoenix
C L Couch
Photo by Hamed Daram on Unsplash
Pumpkin Spice Girls
Fall, fall
Then fall some more
It’s all right, it is the season
I guess all the seasons can be verbs,
Especially the quarter that is half a year
From now
Spring and fall
Fall then spring
This sounds all right
Pretty hopeful, really
Maybe there’s a joke in that,
See you in the spring
After you fall
Seasons that are seasoning
We spice our lives with them
C L Couch
Photo by George Gvasalia on Unsplash
A Climate Change
(an issue in iambic)
We had rain yesterday
The kind of rain that soaks
Into the ground that that needs it
It’s still too warm for autumn
But the wind, I think,
Is trying to be cold
There is some color in the leaves
The brilliance in their own tradition
Hasn’t happened
The days we want to call crisp
As in Frostiana,
Which is persistent, begs a fire
Inside or in a ring at camp
Life in the north, I know
The south of Earth doesn’t have to care
I think it does
C L Couch
Photo by Irena Carpaccio on Unsplash
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