Autumn Day

At the mountain stream, still tumbling
vigorously down the rock-strewn
slope, roiling thunder fills the air though
the level of water spuming and spilling
is diminished from its spring-time high.
There is colour left yet in copper
beech leaves and yellow birch foliage
on this late fall day. Dogwood leaves,
patterned delicately in gold, pink and
scarlet and hemlock, spruce and pine
gleamingly assertively green among
the bare deciduous forest offerings.
The sky a blue sea, upon which no
clouds sail, bright rays penetrate
deep into the forest, deeper now than
possible with green canopy intact.
The tangy aroma of crisp leaf-mounds
envelopes the nature-lovers. A sudden
wind unhinges from branches overhead
remaining leaves, cascading them in
gay abandon festooning hikers' hair
as though they have suddenly somehow
dissolved into the greater landscape,
another point of arcane interest. A
conceit soon abandoned forging on 
through the depleted forest; irradiated 
glimmers of sun reaching areas
never before possible, awakening
insects preparing for winter, within the
vast reservoir of nature's unselfconscious
dedication to life's ineffable elements.