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Dying For Winter

A seasonal jam of unblinking brake-light berries
Alerts the garden's traffic to holly's unswerving station
At terminus annus.
Chameleonic mushrooms suck Autumn's damp residues from the air
Laying surreptitious siege to roots and corms

Un-named evertrees gird their summer skirts for the Winter ball,
Proud, pine and needless of care
They stand in groups, whispering sweet nothings
Perennial plans of Nature's perfections are locked away
In Pandora's earthen box awaiting the key of light.

Alas, the annuals' Herodic cull, sweeps across undisputed borders
Taking no prisoners
Leaving moulds of life-giving death.
A resurrection promised.

Clocks, forward or back have no bearing, no place, no function here.
Cold, colder, coldest.
Cool, warmer, warmest,
Are the transcendental tick and tock of a milliard of years.

Peduncles, pedagogues, philosophers pass on through
With a trace, while Life curries favour with Time
Wrapping itself in a Rodin Kiss
Sealed, solid, stilled
Dead in shape and form
Waiting.

Thank you. This one's a keeper. Should I pay to reprint? -- seriously.

Gina

Byron,

I love this bittersweet poem with it's image-play and wordplay!

I know you live far away from here, yet your words perfectly describe the melancholy of Autumn in Vancouver – wet, decaying, lit by brake-lights in the early dark. And as for those evergreen bitches...

Now I'm really feeling gloomy. Send me to a beach in Mexico for Terminus Annus

Thanks - I love this!

A
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