Applesauce Cake

Applesauce Cake Once again autumn’s jubilee of gold and umber leaves Drifts on a lazy Sunday morning rain Past kitchen windows Where scents of coffee and frying bacon Walk hand in hand Then race each other up the stairs To look for dreamers missed by the dawn While aunts and uncles, Cousins, sisters, brothers, Fathers, mothers Squeeze side by side into the breakfast nook, Touched by the shadow of Annette’s camellia tree Leaves tousled by the hand of autumn, To breakfast over fall chrysanthemums When Grammie clears her throat, Midst suspended coffee cups, Declaring: “This year I don’t think I’ll bake applesauce cake For Thanksgiving.” Gentle rains thunder in the silence Before stunned voices jump to life again Envisioning a holiday without Her crunchy pickles, New made jellies, Opened for the harvest festival, Completed by the allspiced cake Studded with plump summer raisins And toasted nuts; “All right.” she smiling says, Looking deep into her coffee cup, A gypsy searching for the future, “If you really want applesauce cake….” One voice resounds: “We really want applesauce cake!” Outside the passing wind Pats down the season’s Ruffled hair While serenity settles back Into her place at breakfast Once again.