Poetry

On Autumn

On 2016 May 10th by monty

The fourth poem in my Seasons quartet

How beautiful the elegance of slowly turning old,

The elegy of decadence that’s wilting brown and gold,

The gentle sinking of the sun between the harvest-trees,

That shows, through glows of telling beams, the thinning of the leaves.

The turning of the soil, but the toil of this chore

Is that it serves to publicize that Summer is no more.

Every towering bonfire, and chorus choir singing,

Every warmth we require, and steeple bell still ringing,

Every tired expression, stressing smiles despite the fight,

Everything we do is to reclaim the fading light.

The aging Queen of Autumn feels the lines upon her face,

She sees her ever-greying hair, and fast-decaying lace,

She tries to stand, but finds the loamy earth far too unstable,

And cannot taste the summer-feast she once had on her table.

She fears the ice that catches on her perfect morning dew,

She snatches at the berries that once prospered here and grew,

But now fall into mud and join the dying flora there,

The sickening plethora of bare thorns that snare and tear,

Her fragile heart beats hollowly and far beyond repair.

She longs to be a Princess, more with every nail that breaks,

The crisply breaking leaves that sound her effort and her aches,

She looks to have her youth back, despite her lack of sight,

And tries to pull a blanket o’er the strangely bitter night.

Her longing for the past, and passing cries for times forgotten,

Nostalgia for the fruit that from its root is turning rotten,

Are yet the most fantastic things that brighten up her scene,

And lighten up with golden rays her days that once were green.

How beautiful the elegant, but slowly dying Queen.