A Madhouse of Grandeur

My daughter in London sends me pictures of beautiful hardwoods, full of golden leaves, found on Hampstead Heath. For the most part, our trees are now bare. But before we withdraw from this season of color, here is an homage to autumn.

A Madhouse of Grandeur

              A kaleidoscope

          of clarets and mauves,

tangerines and saffrons run amok,

flashing against indigos and sages.

          But now, dullness drugs

the eyes, segments mock time, forever

                      pushing.

    Too soon this panache of autumn

              finds itself underfoot,

  resplendent until brittleness creeps in.

      Where, today, the variegated jazz,

        the funhouse colliding mirrors?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

What Happened?

I used to watch, annually, inland gulls come together one by one on the empty parking lot of the mall across the way before its stores opened. This occurred over several weeks before the birds took off as a flock for warmer wintertime weather. But not this year.

What Happened?

Scavenger gulls vanished from the landscape.

I tumbled to their autumn antics in the empty

mall lot where they mulled and mustered,

                                            lifted and dropped.

Scavenger gulls: cancelled.

Morning assemblies: no more.

I stared out my window craving to see them

on their inland climb out of wintertime.

But scavenger gulls faded, evaporated

          from my denim-jacket days.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor