The Aroma of Autumn

What autumn smells like in Ohio

THE AROMA OF AUTUMN
August 7, 2008
“The Beats” poetry form

The flap of the trembling leaf
repenting
flutters in the rising wind,
sours like apples
fermenting
in bygone barns,
in burn-brown fields, in the spoiled
earth of black shed corners,
Autumn’s litter fired in smoke-bitten
barrels,
opal cornflakes raked into friable
piles, wine saps wrapped in
cinnamon-sweet jackets hard
as ceramic, orange pies drooling
with pumpkins, crunchy sidewalks
shellacked with cold and blowy rain.
The cycle of
repenting
from blossom to withered vine,
from mellifluous perfume, to decaying
odors, from stalwart to curl up,
to roll over
and die.