by John Grey
So why so many Autumn poems?
The pastel colors I get
but truth is
the words are witness to a dying,
trees drained of all reason for being,
no more deep greens to match
the true blue of the sky,
no bustling nests,
no juicy fruit,
half the animals already
burrowed into caves
and the rest foraging and foraging
for lesser and lesser returns.
Poems are over-matched by summer.
And every spring bud is another cliché.
Only winter runs Autumn close
but, ultimately, the thick white crust does away
with details, and the poet’s forced unwillingly
into his own ever-brumal psyche
where it’s all January all of the time.
Autumn, to validate Keats,
is where beauty becomes truth,
and a weathered loveliness
tracks its own ephemera
from branch to mulch.
So why so many poems
of transient beauty,
inevitable fate?
The answer is poets,
change in weather.
Chill in the bones,
and again, poets.
Without Autumn,
they’ve only themselves to blame.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. His latest book, “Leaves On Pages,” is available through Amazon.
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