sound out the words and don’t make them taste so sad,
while keeping the volume down, staring down, craning necks and long backs,
to feel the weight of people throwing pebbles
they picked up on the side of the road,
peppered with litter, with crossed eyes
staring at the stars,
hand flailing in the air,
and we’ll make sure to enunciate the deep-seeded
secrets meant to be kept,
then let go…
autumn’s metamorphosis, a spectral dance, chlorophyll’s retreat,
in a verdant trance
seeping, beneath the lens of scrutiny, abscisic whispers free, tease, float,
farewell to chloroplasts, green cells’ domain, carotenoids unmasked, pigments wane
a day’s decline,
auxins’ flux, the soft design sketched into the horizon,
a rhythmic cascade, synapses fire,
neurons ablaze in the cooling pyre
while intricate as helixes catch fire,
shift profound, underground,
biological clocks in whispers, unbound
deciduous syntax, leaves dissected,
burning vernacular decay, not neglected
as microbes get to work, writing cellulase’s script,
temperatures plummet, enzymes cease, phenolic compounds bring autumn’s peace
fluorescence, gone, a reverie of pigment,
a season’s song, waning,
fall’s chemistry caught in a beaker,
decoded, polyphenols aflame in colors bestowed
dendritic pathways, neural networks splay,
unharmonious prose, caught in the seasons changing, fall, flat,
nature’s data points, her cryptic call
a season’s wisdom, in every leaf’s sway
tea on a hot day,
hot tea on a day,
tea leafs thrown at the wall
and told to stay, don’t move,
be right back,
or maybe not at all,
the simplest of pleasures made to look
too damn complex, rearranged, folded, carved up,
for viewing pleasure,
or a pleasant view,
though not if they are avant-garde,
cause otherwise you’re expected to not like them,
throw them up,
hands up, lay on the ground, don’t look at me!
don’t you dare,
dare, to not look at me!
Fred Aiken Writing 