Automne

The twitching winds are twisting trees
that sway and bend and swim the breeze.
A gown defers before a gust
which tangles legs and tempts the dust.

The breathless clouds are brooding grey
in hollow night and hurried day.
A slashing rain from somber vaults
foretells the winter's tense assaults.

The wolves can hear the winter's tread
and succor pups the summer bred.
The bear attends the berry feast
yet eyes the wind from worried east.

The oak retells the autumn story
as forests show their fading glory
in crimsom, red, and crowns of yellow,
in muted orange and umber mellow.

In grim retreats of gray and green
the needles cling to nomads lean.
From wailing slopes the winter flayed,
the crags can watch the colours fade.


A wife has borne the wondrous seed;
the baby bears the bodes that lead
to gleeful child, cheeks aglow,
with eyes that turn from ill and woe.

The gentle maids she joins in play;
they dance in daisies during day.
And sweet her dreams in sway of night
when darkness rules both dell and height.

Both lithe and smooth her limbs are wrought
as poetry and prose are taught.
The maiden learns her mother's skill,
but few repeat the fairy's ill.

For frightenned by the fairy's curse
against the girl they gird and nurse,
they spun no thread in spacious walls
nor wheel strayed in wards or stalls.







The orchards ripe and apple laden
are loosed in turn by lad or maiden;
their summer sweetness sates the taste
in early eve when ease must haste.

They set aside their summer rafts
as fathers teach the farming crafts
as fathers's fathers before had taught:
in cyclic fates the sons are caught.

They set aside their summer play
to sharpen sickles sheening grey.
They wrap the locks of ribboned girls
in heavy scarves to hide the curls.

The king awaits a courting son
for swift the years that sweetly run
to mold the maid to marriage age.
Their drama nears its dreaded stage.







Their Rose's Bud has reached her time
when suitors come with song and rhyme.
for blushing bloom has blessed her face,
and round and soft her regal grace.

Her beauty's fame the bards inspire,
'Her lips are tensed with long desire;
and hot the flame behind her eyes
that prompts a warm and welcomed prize.'

The high and royal hie to Rose
with gifts of jade, a gem that glows,
and rolling pastures rich in kine,
in horse, in sheep, or heady vine.

By day the men amuse this dove,
but late at night she looks above.
The Harvest Moon of hoary pearl
has counselled calm to clamourred girl.

The moon should rule her mood and tides
when child dreams are cheerless guides.
Unlovely beauty locks her fate
to dreary halls where dreams must wait.


The bears depart for barren caves
while winter wills its wind that raves.
The flocking birds will flee away
when weak will die for want of day.

The workers bundle wheat and grain
ere frost attacks with freezing rain.
When women strain the straw for wheat
their husbands hunt for hoards of meat.

















On winter's eve with waxing moon,
when hilltops sound a haunted tune,
when ice would chill the eager blood,
then roused and waked is Rose's Bud.

A woman beckons, worn and old,
in mystic night, in murk and cold,
and took the maid to tower's gate
the witch had hid in woeful hate.

The spinning wheel splinterred light
with polished spokes and pedal's flight;
the cyclic motion seized her mind
as cyclic fates had seized her kind.

So rich and warm and red her blood,
that soaked her gown in searing flood.
The fairy's vengenance felled the child.
Her mother mourned the maiden mild.







Their future lost, they fade and tire
as winter wears the wife and sire.
Ere month is passed the Mother grays,
and Father feels the fall of days.

The drifts surmount their dread and woe
and nest the house beneath the snow.
With silent tread the servants wait,
enmeshed within their master's fate.

So never spring was known that year
and holts would bode a hidden fear.
The brambles braced the brooding wall
and cloak the tower cold and tall.












No lord was near to lead the fight
of hidden things that hunt by night.
The farmers fled the fiends and vale
and after told their eldritch tale.

In whisperred words of wary verse,
they tell the toll of tearful curse:
the family's woe, the witch's feud,
how death intrigues the daughter's mood.

But still at times a steeple shines
above the barbs and bitter vines.
Amid the waste the maiden sleeps,
a single seed the snow yet keeps.