In stealth, along the avenue
autumn brought out robes of bright decay
above the showy salmon roses – hanging on –
masking paths baked-dry in summer certainties;
As sunlight mustered waning strength, against an easterly
We braced, heads-up from time to time
to watch the failing harvesters of light
curl into their tracery of death, passing
as October paled toward November;
Which drips and soaks and floods and howls in threat
The construct of a year stripped bare, to bones
no longer pandering to life’s desires;
its coat of gold has worn threadbare and gone,
strewn russet on the ground;
Now – darkening grey and coming – winter stalks …