Bursts of burgundy stagger through the maples.
Autumn wind swirls gingko fans around my feet.
                                    I hadn’t noticed till now

                                                the sunflowers’ ripe heads heavy with seed
            hanging over a fence by the Presbyterian church,
                        giant flowers about to spill their cache.

Pumpkin, claret, and mauve ivy climb the old
                        Baker house chimney. Massive catalpas

line Penniman Avenue drooping their gangly pods.
            Pure light floods this landscape,
                        weaves patterns like promises through oak,

            locust, sycamore leaves in soundless air. If only
                                    I could hold today, this brilliance, all year.

Truth is, I’d miss winter’s parable—sparkling frost,
                        a warm hearth during stormy snow.
            I wouldn’t get to see Cedar Waxwings feast on frozen berries

outside my window, ice melting across Wilcox Lake,
            the red fox hunting near water’s edge.
                                                            I’d miss that long wait for spring.

So let me be autumn drunk on radiance
                        bound with hazel, carnelian, flaxen threads,
            burn it to memory, let it unravel all over again.