Autumn Side Of September

In the middle ages these roughed and scuffed decades between newborn crocus snow-melt-nursed and dried hydrangea blooms sepia-skinned and papery thin I earned the right to wear sapphires and burn my mademoiselle mistakes with wisdom-fires it took me a while to grow into my autumn season —the autumn side of September hair once a cascade of summer’s solar flare now but faded flaxen streams spilled by Harvest moon though hazel eyes reveal kaleidoscope enchantment — no more the garish girlish shade of summer grass but rather a muted Nature diluted sage-green specked with autumn sunset amber flecked with maple bark brown; tints of color hint at my September birth September ma chérie when you whisper low I hear cumulus collide cotton-soft your wind-song croons my name as yellow willows bend over the bank like queens about to wash their troubles from tresses prayers of praise I float abundant as corn-fruit-maize away they fly un-weighed to skies rosé like sunlit swans shadows lengthen as sun without swagger sags upon indigo hills September brings me closer to the western edge where my elder-berry soul will someday fledge life no longer noon-time-high a time of ending a time of beginning diurnal dust both gold and coal weighed and balanced equinox an unwinding clock as sapphire-fire melts tart Virgo to free buttery Libra revolution gives way to evolution ah September so sincere as we harvest memories I realize things I don’t miss summer energy uncorked like shaken champagne spray now gives way to days oak-aged like Chardonnay I savor reflections in facets of sapphire nights as fire-flight-phoenixes fly ember-seeds of dreams into spiral galaxies where Pegasus reigns my imagination— rein free— rains in watercolors across paper reams of fated nights brisk with a nip playful-painful like puppies’ milk-teeth that nick against my skin not yet sweater ready but I allow a woolen embrace for winter lay ahead in the wood-stove-season of September sapphire spirit burns with a fire in my throat I sing without fear my tears my cheers alive in my verse memoirs of Venus and Mars shared with the universe September are you listening? together we will ripen like pale wheat sheafs as we celebrate and commiserate my second coming of age and your muted season of silver and sage it took me a while to grow into my autumn season —the autumn side of September born of your change-of-life-womb I return your vintage sister together we’ll lose the mettle of our rusted metal to the spindle pricks of hoarfrost but never the star of our sapphire stone your copper canopy will fall my copper veins will freeze when winter man grows his ancient ice-beard long his reason as old as his rime is cold as he paints us faint in December’s antique white —but my blood and bosom will always hold your apple cider spice and fire pit glow