Come walk with me before the wet returns,
while sky is still serenely blue and clear
and sunlight slants its thin light from the south,
shimmering through the tops of trembling trees
and turning all their growth to gleaming gold.
The riot of red leaves like rubies shines,
held high above our heads against the sky.
The leaves are lying thick upon the lawn,
so scarce a glimpse of green peeps out between.
The crimson carpet crunches ‘neath our feet
and scatters by the scuffing of our shoes.
The south wall shelters us, and here we stand
to let the sun’s rays soak into our skin
while still the warmth exists, before it wanes
to chilly shrouding clouds, and then to cold.
What bliss to join in Nature’s joyful blaze,
‘though colors bright and cheering can but be
a herald for the harder times to come
when foliage falls and rots, when sunlight fails,
and color vanishes into the void.