i.
 
 Mid autumn
 Sun fled
 Rivers of color
 Drying up on each
 Black Oak
 Leaf
 
 Down to the 
 Underworld it goes
 Persphone’s paint pots
 All winter full.
 
 ii.
 
 Murmuring with silence
 This forest
 Cold air hugging ground
 Empty windows 
 Between straight conifer tree trunks
 Arched 
 Oak-leaf canopies fingering air
 With bare branches
 Like gasping  sea-anemones 
 Tendrils out of water
 
 iii.
 
 Slow dying
 Autumn leads processionals
 Throwing brown leaves everywhere
 Behind it
 Skittering shuffles of Towhee
 Hidden in the Kitkidize
 Each day’s step
 Closer to some heart of cold
 And darkness
 
 Moon 
 Trails behind
 Waxing ominously, eating sky
 With brightness
 Bragging heaven 
 Of stars.
 
 9 November 2019
 Coffee Berry Hill
Northern Sierra Foothills
2680'