Autumn

I walk on roads where brown words
hang heavy on the trees,
and bulbous blood-red berries
crown over the winding avenues.

Where the birds are packing up
for long journeys,
their discarded flakes of nestleaf
drunkly swirl down the spinning whiffs.

Where a badger snuffles out a hedge,
takes one busy look,
then flees the scene
rustling through the thorns and fern.

Where the low sun
swipes a stripe of light
along the scarlet hawlines
and defies the bruised September sky

And the last crazy wasps
frantically search for a deposit
before sundown, before death,
woozing about in the fat rays.

Where proud geldings stand high
above a crisping pool of dying green,
mirroring the chestnut
of their auburn sheen.

Big bursting sycamores
proudly arabesque
and rasp a tongue
at their approaching nudity

As my shadow darkens taupe
dancing, angled into the briars,
and I glide toward a season of breaths,
glistening in an early frost.