shining jewel clusters
break open the escarpment
like precious stones waiting to be mined
brilliant leafy treasure
blasts of magnificent colour
explode across the rocky grandstand
backdrop to the season’s splendor
its once generous green given way
to greedy autumn’s foliage display
absent emeralds
stolen by nature’s alchemy
redeemed for rubies, garnets
amber, gold
the greatest illusion
of tempered grandeur
before the bitter cold
it should be forbidden
that beauty unfolds
so lithely in loveliness
before its death
dappled luster’s ugliness
only revealed up close
moths have chewed endlessly
leafy veins, now begging bowls
blackened edges encase
slug-gobbled holes
not unlike the singed suffering
of cigarette-burned abuse
maple’s steepled points
waxed and dried
crunchy now upon crisp earth
hard to understand its worth
its place in time,
once life, once food
now dead, now dearth
and oh the scents! I cannot forget
the dampened clay and rotting fern
sickly sweet suckles long dried up
a sun-baked bog with willowed dregs
the sunflowered smells twist into sound
scritch-scratching of squirrel toes in trees
chipmunks squeak, thin branches break
acorns land in leaves
a buzz of daubers, wasps and bees
harmonized with the last cicada song
too soon the symphony will cease
and tarsi tickles won’t be found
not for so long! so if you please…
I beg for just a bit of time
to exhaust under this dying sun
that scalds with will to kill all life
that incinerates the weak and blind
leave me alone to work my mind
and feel the last blaze of the year
striving not to shed a tear
striving not to feel false fear
that knights permanence on temporary conditions
I will be strong and wise
and remain loving, kind
though winter has its eternal quality
once here, ne’er gone
still… it must go eventually
we’ll see…
just let me loaf in this season’s sun
to soak in such sensational torture –
intense, so brief, so fun –
ending soon,
hardly begun
The Halfwit Writer 