Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
~Emily Brontë, from Fall, Leaves, Fall

A steely torn silver, rusted along the edges;
the faint acidic yellow, like the backwash
of a polluted pond; earth-spatter

and gold spot in blotchy shallows;
grays the purpling of drenched slate;
and a pooling crimson with the false

bonhomie of the maraschino cherry –
all that unnecessary life turning to tinder.
The shadows were fragile-fertile

beyond the shocks of grimy hay in a spent field.
The India-ink, closeted blacks –
why choose the easeful darks?

Not that anything lay hidden there.
Was it only the spilled-over, abandoned life
and, from the wastage, the broken buds?
~William Logan “Leaf Color”

I too was once ablaze, alive, vibrant,
burning with color and passion,
blending hues together
in a blissful rainbow medley
before letting go to fly to my winter rest.

It is never wasteful to flame up
for an exuberant goodbye.
Broken beauty spills over to glory.

Autumn is never the end of my story.
Nor yours.