The Darker Season

Silas Bradley

Little by little do I see, 

The shaking of the changing trees,

Blushing in the changing wind

To shed their cloaks and shiver

In the endless shadow of creeping winter.

The wind whose soft fingers touch,

The rising smoke from shuttered hut,

Begins to chill the noonday light,

And changes to the world’s dismay

The fields green to brown and bruised grey. 

Liminal to hearts delight,

When against the pale grey sky,

How the world is set ablaze 

By the quilt of red and green

Set over the woven, sleeping trees.

Down the river’s gentle bend,

Through meadow, hill, and town again,

Turns from mellow sun-soaked shape,

Reeling from autumn’s cool breath

to churning, piercing, icy depth.

And over the scene of a moment’s fruition, 

Jagged lines of geese sail the plain blue ocean,

Racing through the empty sky,

Off to gather in greener lands

Fleeing winter’s looming demands.

Upon the hill a lone tree stands,

With years of wisdom in gnarled hands,

The last of its brothers it rests alone, 

And greets with knowing resignation

The changing of the coming season.

Over the world the spell is cast,

Perfecting moments lost too fast,

Sowing seeds of changing time, 

Announcing with bold triumphant greeting 

The coming of the Darker Season.