Sea Change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Summer is fast ebbing away and a potpourri of autumn scents are in the air already, assailing the senses and changing the inner eye’s kaleidoscopic view of self, nature and the world…yet again.

Autumn is a beautiful season with its turning leaves of red and gold, yet sad also as we bid farewell to the swallows and prepare - along with much of nature - for the winter months ahead. At the same time, there is something beautiful, too, in sadness as if human spirit and spirit of nature are always conspiring to somehow soften the sharper edge of grief, loneliness, apprehension,…whatever, and never more so than in autumn.

This poem is a villanelle; it first appeared s in a Poetry Now [Forward Press] anthology A Summer’s Breeze (2003) and subsequently in my collection.

SEA CHANGE

Sea of muddy leaves,

our summer gone

as autumn grieves

Heaps, like ragged graves

with flowers strewn,

sea of muddy leaves

A dying sparrow heaves

its last, alone

as autumn grieves

North wind brings waves,

our seasons blown;

sea of muddy leaves

No kinder soul than braves

an acid rain

as autumn grieves

Each heart, in time, gives

up its own…

sea of muddy leaves

as autumn grieves

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004: new (e-edition) in preparation.]