Copper Road...A Poem

Copper Road


Please don’t leave,
O’ burnished ridge of mine
I’m not ready.
Give me more gold or ruby rust,
both equally valuable

To me anyway

And you, overripe raspberry,
disguised as Sumac
My heart is clotted
with your intense bloody hue
Linger longer
I plead silently.

This morning, the rising sun
came piercing through the black trunks
turning the dim road into copper.
Glistening shards, blinding streaks,
demanding my attention, and I gave it,
and it awed me.
You’re irresistible and you know it.
Show off!

Same time next year, you shout.
I know…but
your cruel tease of time
between visits
between orgies of colour
that can penetrate souls -
It’s too long.

How else can I describe you?
Dazzling deciduous forests,
mile after mile,
lining bogs,
tracing hills,
mingled with spruce, pine and cedar.
Evergreen and cerulean sky; your complimentary partners,
like humble undergarments beneath your jewelled cloaks.

Your perfume - aahhh, that familiar scent.
A memory -
I’m four
Penny loafers, clicking and swishing through
leafy carpets,
pockets heavy with shiny mahogany chestnuts for show and tell
Nostrils damp, wafts of cool earth and decay,
foreshadow the frigid future,
that comes after goblins and ghosts
have knocked on doors

By All Saints Day, you’ll be gone
and melancholy will settle over me like
November fog blankets the bay that is missing the loons.
They gathered, cried and vanished.
Much like you did.
I’ll have to settle for ducks now.
Quacking substitutes. Hunter’s targets.

Last hurrahs,
Final flourishes,
Bittersweet goodbyes.
You’re all of these.
Can you tell you are my favourite?
Is it obvious how much I adore you?

Oh, doomed season…

Oh, Autumn.