Fall Poems

One of the pleasures of being at the farm full time this year has been getting to watch the arc of autumn from the first hints of color to the last leaves clinging to the trees. Here are a few poems that reflect moments of that progression:

September days are

cooler now and yet the wild

flowers still blossom

Fall does not dilly

dally around here

leaves color even

as wild flowers still bloom

like an old man putting on

his nightshirt before all the

guests have departed

Riotous color

may follow but for now I’m

enjoying pastels

Driving home from

the girls school on

a bright October

midcoast morning

I’m pretty sure

the light of heaven

looks like this

Out the barn loft window

a sumptuous brocade 

of yellow and green

A middling gray

October day the woods

are thinning and the 

colors still delight 

It’s not just the trees

Even the marshes

Glow russet and gold

I have waited for this moment

when the trees begin to strip

one by one and grove by grove

standing half naked or all 

a few straggling leaves clinging 

to random branches

Black framed storm windows

are up on the white farm house

the evening chill thrills

The leaves have fallen

or rusted fog lies in fields 

like ghosts reluctant

to yield to the clear

colorless light of morning

Take ripe local 

bartlett pears

lots of them

cut in half

lay face down 

on a baking sheet

roast at 350 

until caramelized

eat some now

freeze the rest

tastes like autumn

Slanting November

light draws the last honeyed gold

from the leaves the air

Frosted waves of grass 

on the shorn field spruce and bare

white birch line the edge