Harbinger

A tiny jewel
perfectly shaped
on well-walked path

surrounded by green
luxuriant branches
fern-covered ground

pentagonal with stem
glittery bicolored
in scarlet and gold

acer rubrum leaf
in miniature
firstborn of the season.

Autumn's Orphan

Hastening her shedding
of dried-up, drab, yellow-brown leaves
before the color show begins

green functionality complete
no reason to hang around
not candidate for understudy role

unwanted outlier
to familiar cast of characters
ready to appear in autumn's drama

instead...first to bare her limbs
to Indian summer warmth
before submitting to winter's sleep.

Fall Foliage #10

Watching Nature work
in her photography lab
developing fall foliage

first with pastels
pale yellows mixed with orange
in a sea of lemon-green

next with watercolors
washes of brighter hue
drenching the hillsides

finished in rich oils
with dramatic, lush tones
of Renaissance splendor

fixed with digitizing clarity
as memory sheets
for bulging, autumnal album.

Before It Falls

Shall I pluck it
place in a vase
before it falls

my reddening talisman
still clinging tightly
to Autumn's stage

I touch its glowing surface
with growing attachment
each passing day

and feel its summer pulse
inside leafy veins
slipping away

no, I will not interrupt
its last communing
before it separates.

Delicious Memory Scents

I close my eyes and remember with my nose

freshly-cut grass with its cousin hay
balsam fir needles heated by the sun
muddy tidal marshes bathed in salty air
crushed wintergreen, sweet fern fronds
aromas of wild grapes and scuppernongs
rosa rugosa, yellow jasmine
smell of snow, lilacs in the spring
and wood smoke beckoning me back home.

evocative gifts stored as memory jolts.

Interlopers in Iceland

Balanced on the mid-Atlantic ridge
at its landlocked singularity

left feet on North American plate
right on Europe's creeping-away crust

just two of us, an Adam and Eve
straddling a planetary seam

transported back in terrestrial time
to a rough and restless Eden

interlopers in exotic, gothic gardens
untainted by human habitation.

Spectral Fall Flora

Fragile, skeletal remains
purples, pinks, blues, yellows

all bleached out

ghostly, roadside brigades
fireweed, asters, goldenrod

still with distinctive silhouettes

waiting, waiting, waiting
to be laid to rest
by winter's deep snows.