An Intimation of Autumn :
My
‘Own’ Devotional Ode …
By L.P. - G.
I
A season’s sweetest feast
Descends,
amid cool misty morns;
Through
lushly hallowed fields
It
treads, besieged by rampant storms.
August
plays the sentinel,
Relieved
of farewell norms,
A leaf burns golden; later, red;
A leaf burns golden; later, red;
(And
hence, September’s born).
It plots with poise to consecrate
A fruitful sun we celebrate;
How does it bring such grace and light
A fruitful sun we celebrate;
How does it bring such grace and light
To
dappled harvests, void of blight?
Ripe crops are seen to richest core;
Bloating the gourd, through a sweetness thus poured;
Ripe crops are seen to richest core;
Bloating the gourd, through a sweetness thus poured;
Setting fall’s table and still so much more,
Hence, fetch latent flowers for every type bee,
Send warmest-wishes on free, bended knee;
For Summer holds promises right up its sleeve
Send warmest-wishes on free, bended knee;
For Summer holds promises right up its sleeve
Of this, (of course): I’ll admit,
I SO believe!!
II
Yet,
Summer sun and Autumn sun, past friendship of a kind;
Whoever
seeks their succor-strength may sometimes coolly find
Both seasons dwelling carelessly along a drafty floor,
Tresses gently lifted-up by winter’s windy score;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow-trail, now fast and sound asleep,
Dipped in shades of poppy-smoke; red-crimson, crisp and deep,
Dreaming not of fallowed fields, but fertile swaths of flowers:
Both seasons dwelling carelessly along a drafty floor,
Tresses gently lifted-up by winter’s windy score;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow-trail, now fast and sound asleep,
Dipped in shades of poppy-smoke; red-crimson, crisp and deep,
Dreaming not of fallowed fields, but fertile swaths of flowers:
Watching
through the sun’s keen lens, these final oozing hours.
And sometimes like a helping-hand, one of them, or more,
And sometimes like a helping-hand, one of them, or more,
Embarks
on fields grown thick with wheat, returned to nature’s core.
September spins its sturdy web across a trenchant brook;
September spins its sturdy web across a trenchant brook;
The night-sky, traced by
cider-spice, gives one last solemn look.
III
Way past us now are songs of Spring;
None thrive
in Autumn’s haze;
Think of them, ‘NOT’; their scents imbued:
Think of them, ‘NOT’; their scents imbued:
Scorched-hot by Summer’s gaze.
In wailful tones, chilled to the bone,
Cicadas sadly moan,
While lambs bleat-out dejected breath
Whose vapor fades to stone.
Adrift in pallid rivers
spent by summers tossed asunder;
Embraced by light-wind’s rhythmic touch,
Embraced by light-wind’s rhythmic touch,
Comes softly pliant thunder.
Crickets dance with plaintive song,
In trebled cadence, ‘soft’;
Robins meld in mournful tunes
Robins meld in mournful tunes
From quiet garden-lofts;
Gathering swallows twitter still, but also gently sigh,
Gathering swallows twitter still, but also gently sigh,
‘Pure notes of grim
dismissal’
Part the late September
sky:
And so it goes, and so it
goes;
(September reaps, what September sows…).
Written by Lisa Porter-Grenn, M.D.
(with all apology to Keats)
