Todays poem was inspired not by fall but rather by a conversation I had with my son about the fact that everything, everything we say, we think, we feel, we create, we are, is influenced and informed by metaphor and simile. We cannot make it through a day, an hour, without thinking that one thing is like another or, metaphorically, one thing is another.
We exist, emotionally and creatively, by proving the words of Aristotle were absolute truth, as well as wisdom: “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.”
As I sat at my computer, parched soil waiting for rain, the scene outside my window touched something inside of me with a sense of both wonder and despair. Summer was dying at the hands of autumn. Autumn for all its beauty was bullying the trees to turn into canvasses of color before becoming solemn and bare, imitating death.
I will admit Autumn is not my favorite season and yet, I admire its enthusiasm, determination, its celebration of color, sound and sensation. So, I offer you “AUTUMN in METAPHOR & SIMILE.” I hope it ignites in you your own “eye for resemblances.”
AUTUMN in METAPHOR & SIMILE
Blueberry sky
ocean spray clouds sun
settling softly
as a lovers touch
on the outstretched arms
of willow
cradled in pillows of green
gold bold
the tight fist hold
of Fall on everything
dreamlike days
scramble past
beginnings thinning
everything in wily whisps
fragile as sighs
abrupt disruptive
nothing of dignity in the
disassembling of summer
chipmunks burst
brown bubbles out from under
bushes a hare
ears pointed towards the sky
resembling hands in prayer
scrambles likes a frightened child
across the dying skin
of lawn robins’ ballet dance
on air schemers easing in
to Hawthorne berry dreams
below the hill still
as stone two does
peruse the scene
between the bold defiance
of the dawn the warrior advance
of night I grace myself
in light embrace
the dying days
a mourner at a funeral
for summer seasons
steal the soul
of what came before
winning
for the moment the race
from life to death
thief rapscallion
Fall you un-tell
stories
summer told
marauder with no qualms
of filching breath
cunning trickster
mind no manners
know no bounds
~~~~
when fall has picked
the bones of summer bare
it best beware
a surreptitious shadow
lurks quickening
its pace can you not hear
in the bruised and battered brush
winter cackling on the wind
“I’m on my way – I’ll soon be there…”
