In the Mourning Time

Leaves masquerading as flowers

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." --Albert Camus

In the mourning time of autumn, Before the branches are bare — when everything's bursting with beauty Of ageless hues in the Earth's oldest Performance art, we revere the trees By reading the memory of their leaves. With the eyes of angels, we shutter Like curtains of cornucopia held up By clouds painted on a cerulean sky Hovering overhead, overhearing The secrets concealed in the silences Between the words — no conflated Conversations with forgone Conclusions about us building up Too many walls and not enough Bridges — right where we met Amidst magical dreams In the midnight summer air With our hearts riding the wings Of skylarks, transmitting vibrations To our soul mates beyond the wave's Comprehension of the moon's pull On the music of the spheres Descending into fall.

We remain in awe of the cascade Of leaves masquerading as flowers, Touching something old in the soul, And just like summer's untimely end, So shall autumn — before the black And white silence of winter sets in.

This is written in response to J.D. Harms’ marvelous prompt on transformations:

2021 Michael Hall is a creative, who is the creator and curator of The Bazaar of the Bizarre and a submissions editor for The POM, married and living in Illinois. He forges poetry on the wordwright’s anvil but also soul travels — by any dreams necessary — like a ship without a sail, because in the words of Albert Camus, “to create is to live twice.”