Wing of birds
Autumn in the deep south
Arrives unnoticed It drips in ever so slowly And takes you by surprise Not blended but folded in A complicated recipe The calender knows before the land She slips in unobtrusively The color is leeched from the sky A little at a time From blue To gray Gradually Some trees change their aspect Others don't The woods develop freckles Spattered colors The cleanings of the brush of the north The leaves are gradually released From their summers tethers To swirl and dance on the Gulf winds one with another From flag to freedom They crackle They dance They parish Many are swept away By armies with rakes Bagged and curbed As if an embarrassment Hauled away on Tuesdays and Thursdays To be buried or burned A curled eyesore Best left to rot In the dark Others are placed by the wind Around fixed objects Drifts of southern snow Changed from crackle to mush By winter rains Left to nourish That which nourished them The heat turns from oppressive To irritating You hear; "It feels good outside" Spoken with amazement Sounding rusty from lack of use Odd pieces of apparel Called jackets and sweaters Put in an appearance For a short time At morning And evening Like snapshots Of a more northern clime Autumn is a weathered face At the kitchen window Mona Lisa'd lips And a wistful look in her eye Canning the year To place on winters shelf The sun spends more and more time In other places And then only half-heartedly shines And is quickly away A low arch on the horizon For a muted land Animals scurry about Going over "to do" lists Marking off the last few items The gulf knows only shallow and deep And cares little for the happenings on shore The birds gather in gasping numbers And perform as one In the air Creating shapeless shapes A feathered semaphore Unknown to all A flock of punctuation A wing of birds OBJuan
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