By Marie-Louise Meyers

Feel the delicate build-up of momentum, the energy reaching 

a crescendo while the mists have inundated the hoary grass

with a fresh-winded embrace of leaves as if insight to gain.

Not in one jeweled tone but in many as it gathers to a kind of oozing penetration to install beauty wherever our pathway takes us;

mums the word in gardens, marigolds touched with frost,

overarching trees driven to a kind of magnificence as they release their battery of yellow, purple and crimson leaves keeping time 

with the rapid firing of our heart strings.  

Autumn subtly transforms the palette and your thinking,

a fire brand of trees and bushes cross your path, 

the sun lowers its gaze at times into a haze

but puts a nip and tuck into all languid deeds

with acorns and nuts bombarding us 

but we’re made of sterner stuff.

How the wood ducks put on their brakes 

to see me near the water’s edge not submerged within

as if an undertaker to their chagrin.

Still you come across with rip-roaring energy in the enervating air 

with just a sprinkle of despair locked in for good measure

for the even flow of summer has gone by

with surprises in store till the countdown to winter begins.

All the promises we didn’t keep, reflection at a peak. 

Autumn to me is like an infection, a confection, 

even a Mischief and Halloween maker  

but you can’t get enough of its inspired reflection

changing the landscape with its heave ho of leaves you retrieve.

Cerebral days of exhilaration and contemplation

calculated to inspire your every desire. 

Climbing the last tendril of light into earth-shattering perfection.