Villanelle for Autumn

 

Daylight dries the night’s veneer on leafy downs;

house to road the poplar trees give skeletal shiver

for seething rakes to push the lot to leafy mounds.

 

The season surrenders in pliable autumn sound

to an earthy matron whose flitting eyes divine the river:

daylight dries the night’s veneer on leafy downs.

 

Workboots buckled, she dons a wide brimmed straw crown,

patterned gloves, overalls and the grit to stand and deliver,

for seething rakes to push the lot to leafy mounds.

 

So much pulling and pushing—the leaf confounds!

She works in silence, where in this wintry weather

daylight dries the night’s veneer on leafy downs.

 

She combs and smoothes her private grounds

and this term’s frippery grows to litter 

for seething rakes to push the lot to leafy mounds.

 

The fiery tinder blazes a ghostly yellow, then brown,

ashen cinders bellow the smoke in crisp November.

Daylight dries the night’s veneer on leafy downs

for seething rakes to push the lot to leafy mounds.

 

-- October 16, 2003