Poem: "Two Lyrics about Autumn"

I
Persephone adjusts her veil;
the dryads flee from the pool
as the goddess begins her descent
to the underworld, attended by shades
flittering like a mosaic.

Fauns and wild beasts
dance in a circle, trembling
like the leaves that
tumble like souls around their heads,
falling in scarlet and gold

gashes cut by the rough wind;
and the wind still retains some tunes
left over from summer:
it breathes melody, note-by-note,
into the cool azure

sky, letting
frost and unfeeling breezes
drift
in solitude and ragged
breaths

to the grass and fallen leaves,
passing through the atmosphere
as Persephone's feet clatter,
drunk on ritual seasonal sadness
down to the obsidian throne.
II
Autumn falls in stages;
the twilight of the year is
slow; it is almost unnatural
in how we grow accustomed
to it. We seldom think

of Autumn in
terms of the mechanics, in terms
of the fleeting
cessation of nature
and nature's gears.

We seldom lend
our lyrical faculties
to pondering
the moment that persists
for three months

when the world
is bathed in rough, sensual
cold
that melts the summer with
intensity,

leaving the world
caught in a crimson
moment, frozen
in an all-consuming
autumnal fire.