AUTUMN 2012

I think that this autumn is by far the most beautiful in my memory.  I know there are others who feel the same, and everyone is trying to articulate what feelings are being evoked by such magnificence.

The colors are so intense that I feel a bit exhausted, at times, contemplating them. 

The expression 'exquisite pain' comes to mind, as this beauty slams into one with great force.

It burns itself into you...

and even though it is almost too much to take, we keep on looking and loving and entering it.

Many, many years ago I found a poem by Bliss Carmen (1861-1929) that came pretty close to capturing the beauty of autumn...he could have written this in regards to fall this year.  There are lines in this poem that I covet, and wish I had penned.

A Vagabond Song

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood-

Touch of manner, hint of mood; 

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name. 

Bliss Carmen

Autumn has been calling me especially hard this year, and I have wanted to articulate my feelings in words...darn that such lines like 'there is something in the autumn that is native to my blood' are already taken.  Even knowing that Bliss Carmen has told the story so well, I have attempted myself....a work in progress. 

AUTUMN 2012

Color pushes the limits

this year

almost, though not quite

violently.

The hills, a riot of flame,

push me, too,

singeing my cheeks...

and for a moment

I am aflame...

I am but a leaf

dazzling myself

and the world...

while the blood

roils and tumbles

snapping and sparking me

to the edge of attention

where, on this brink,

I burst into the

magnificence.

Joanne Adragna Shird