Autumn Reverie

Early Autumn in clear glory
With a touch of heat
Just outside the shade of still green trees.
Sky, unadorned by cloud,
A single high contrail
Fleets across the zenith,
Then fades back into the perfect blue.

Around the edges of leaves,
In the poplars and the persimmons and the rosebuds,
The faintest ghost of arid color
Tinges the future florid Autumn.

For now, it’s the rampant green Autumn,
The clear, perfectly hot
Southern Alabama Autumn,
Composed of equal parts
Clarity and warmth
And the haunting expectation
Of the coming coolness.