Rain cracks its whip
Against the windows. The wielder: autumn.
From the cottage in the cleft of the foothills
You can see a flickering light, just out of sight
And it stains the blackest night.
Crossroads covered with leaves, mourning the absence of
Sleeping drunken youths.
They’re all sleeping by the fire in their blankets
Because it’s already dark.
Autumn’s fingers splattered with paint
From his fiery palette. He thinks he’s an artist, but in fact
He’s chasing a dying year, a year rolling onto its back
Exhausted, too weary to perform any longer.
The fire will fall away into the skeleton.
Dawn and dusk are draped with mist
Rain every night, daggery sunbeams
Every morning.
Clouds stacked in the sky like a log fire –
These things go unnoticed in turmoil.
There’s a soft humming, a pulse that throbs underfoot
Long swallowed by the shriek of blurry Now.
It’s the same autumn
As watched by nobles in red silk
Surrounding their virgin queen;
The same autumn through which
The horses of the light brigade thundered to inferno,
And flat-capped men dragged the motorcar
As they wrenched it into life.
It’s the same autumn, a fickle painter but
Not a forsaker.
You’ll see him every year.
Light the lamps. It will be so dark today, it will be so dark
It will feel like dusk all day.
