"Don't put things off…it may be later than you think."
“Fall Sheen” ©️C.P. Hickey 2019
Damp colored trees
Wind severed leaves
Autumnal linger
The furnace agrees
Summer has ceased
Headed for winter
Awaken in dark
Desolate park
Apple orchards empty
Lichen tree bark
Horizons now stark
Pumpkin patch plenty
Flaming orange leaves,
Falling from the trees.
Autumnal release,
Aided by the breeze.
Flaming orange leaves,
Foliage conceit.
Branches out of reach.
Bunching up on streets.
Flaming orange leaves,
Flavored spice coffees.
Crunching all about.
Clogging gutter spouts.
Flaming orange leaves,
Festive hayride scenes.
Dipping temp degrees.
December frost kills bees.
There are sounds in graveyards.
Earthen sounds of sorrow and surrender.
Sonic suppositions and wailing gypsies.
Contemplative gorge.
Terror of impermanence.
An impasse, but not passive.
Hang around long enough and you train your ears to listen.
On the fringe of life, abutting, and right up against it.
A city of ruins, leading paths to a suburban eternity.
Invited patience sublimates itself to the alpha regret.
Sinister doubts press courage from beating hearts.
The busy silence teases out the denied emotions of Faustian bargains.
Legions of lifeless bones, marked by dust and stone.
A marathon sprint to stillness.
Perpetual motion, dispatched to be oblivion.
Authoritative immense silence speaking volumes to those not willing to look.
A distant buzz of lawn-grooming engines, drones on.
A lulling drone; consistent.
Cars passing by on the periphery, allowing measurable distance to be heard.
Rushing toward a graver situation.
Whistling past the graveyard.
Tenants without complaints, barely registering.
Rotting remains, animate the six-feet deep dioramas of death beneath our feet.
Worms, et al, explore yawning canvases.
A subterranean bacchanalia.
Mourner’s tears ant farm tunnels in the shoveled earth.
This offends the dead, but no one understands why?
Perhaps grief humors the living, despite the noise of the dead.
Abutting a frenzy of dancing air,
Petals and leaves propel themselves still.
Potted points of oxygen emissions.
Nature dovetails with man made structures.
Breaking left and right,
Aboveish and belowish.
Invisible force,
Much like gravity,
But not as omnipresent.
A delicious chill leaks down my back and puckers my cheeks.
The time of seasonal consistency approaches its end.
Onward to the new death,
And dying things.
That somehow make it their business to appear at a later time.
Boston Fall begins in an understated way.
A small change in the air indicates
The approaching winter.
Sipping scalding water,
That was passed through crushed coffee beans,
Burns the lips and tongue in a friendly way.
How wonderful a find,
An empty bench becomes.
All the neighborhood dogs stop,
To make sure I’m not the Postman.
South End bustle makes me feel alive.
Colors are beginning to bend toward cozy.
A crispness dances through the wind.
Lots of people packing away their Summer dreams.
Readying for Winter’s sleep.
A slight reprieve from that stark passage.
Pull on a sweater and enjoy the bronzing skies.
Raking up the first piles of fallen leaves,
The disturbed earth smells musky medicinal.
Orangish browns arranged chaotically.
Some stubborn leaves are pierced by rake tines and remain regardless of how hard they are shaken.
Crisper air condescends,
And foretells of winter bleak on the many mornings ahead.
Gathering the leaves into a Town Hall Meeting,
Where they might turn nostalgic for Summer swaying branches.
Then up a yard-waste receptacle.
Quite a spectacle.
“Seasoned Traveler”
Bon voyage!
Crashing waves wash away your permanence.
Chasing away the inequity of man.
A transplanted farmer’s tan, lingers a touch longer.
Tide us over until the New Moon.
Like squeezing water from a rock,
me like a hurricane.
Solarcaine pain.
Coppertone drain.
Summer’s last days.
Diminishing rays.
Wind picking up, in a serious tone.
Leaves leave trees on a leisurely breeze.
Fall down deep and crisp the soil.
Dog droppings play hide and seek among the yarmulke yellows, rosacea reds, greedy greens, and broken browns.
Air feels fumic on the lungs.
Naked trees reach up into the sky.
Clouds push down and leer at the hills for their obstinacy.
Plastic bags caught on power lines flip, flap, flippity-flappity.
Solitary traveler whistling past the graveyard.
Traveling toward the final embrace.
Numbness, sweet airy buzz.
Apply the thing that makes it stop.
Reverent resonance required,
batteries are included.
Winter will come,
bitterly.
