Sydney Lea: Black Marks
On this Sunday morning at the end of November, I’ve been walking the Snake Road, its tar still dry; our winter is predicted to be warm this year.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will,
Call me in all things what I was before,
A flutterer in the wind, a woman still;
I tell you I am what I was and more.
Barbara Crooker: Praise Songs for Autumn
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Louise Bogan: Simple Autumnal
The measured blood beats out the year’s delay.
The tearless eyes and heart, forbidden grief,
Watch, the burned, restless, but abiding leaf,
The brighter branches arming the bright day.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: About My Birthday
when the last leaves let go, let go,
have all let go, & it’s almost winter again —
don’t remember my birthday
Byron Hoot: Two Poems About Fall
It is fall and ghosts walk
in the wind among fallen
leaves, mist, and fog more
easily than any other time
of the year
Margo Berdeshevsky: Listen….Listen
Or firefly, night-lighter,
what eye can see your ladybird
love’s wingbeat
Amy Lowell: The Broken Fountain
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
Adam Bittleston: September
Into the ripening
Of earth’s great gifts
The mists of autumn
Begin to be woven.
Kathryn Levy: Three Poems
The geese are calling—this is
time to depart. They gather and sink and
soar toward somewhere.
John Clare: Autumn
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
Margo Berdeshevsky: For Autumn, 2023
yet awake to the fallen
leaves—their many many
tiny burning
hands—
Wayne Karlin: Butch in Autumn
Run ahead again,
old friend,
I’ll catch up with you later.
Barbara Crooker: Poem For My Birthday
Send me a heart of gratitude for this long afternoon
of goldenrod light falling across my typewriter
and a sky so blue I want to bite it like an apple.
