Intoxication

There is no drug as intoxicating as this :
The Evening Lands of Autumn beckoning you
To journey into the calling hands
Of the dark winter night.

Hold the night

Hold the night in the hand
Of the hunted North Wind
And fill the abandoned harbors
And sleeping towns
With cobweb lights.
And the waxing waves and
the falling leaves
Will cling to their
red-cheeked hosts and we
Will dance in each other’s shadows
Until there is no more light.

Northern Harvest

Autumn nears its peak and the pearly pink of summer dawns give way to the misty breezes of Fall rustling through wayward harvest leaves.

People come out of their houses pulling on coats and scarves looking skywards to check for rain.

Odors of wet grass and smoke from burning dead branches and leaves scent the damp fields and escape into the half-asleep cities sighing with summer exhaustion.

Schools are abustle with children in new-term clothes, a few late-comers are still playing in the shadow-casting hedges in the gold-ripe fields, their feet flattening the wet turf into zig-zag dark trails.

For a few days still, the days are set in color against the molten good sun. The moors are softly mauved with heather and the sea is still a calm expanse of blue.

But soon, a wreath of hoarfrost will settle on the trails, finishing the year with a winter dusk stretching from November to January, bringing inside the people of the north to sit beside fires rejoicing in their dreams of another summer.