Curtis Jerry Smothers - Teacher, Editor, Poet, Writing Coach
Colorado Seasonal Poetry
Autumn is my favorite time of year in Colorado. The greens change to golden yellow and the mountains become a technicolor extravaganza.
Autumn Leaves
Now autumn leaves
As winter calls
It leaves its leaves
In frigid stalls
And when they fall
From weeping trees
They lie in stacks
Of brittle sheaves
Awaiting snows
White, cold, and dread
They're crunchy brown
Dull orange and red
Splenetic greens
Fled summer's hue
Memories now
In autumn's spew
From branch to ground
To face the rake
They lie in piles
Like souls to take
The autumn pyres
Ride the breeze
Denuded branches
Lonely trees
With rising smoke
In large boughs' lees
Burn incense fine
To memories
Reminding all
That autumn leaves
And winter stalks
To strip and tease
Fall Fashion
Summer's raiment, gaudy green
Makes way for Autumn's earth tones sheen
As windy, cool and longer nights
Undress the trees at mountain heights
Fall fashion is a fleeting sight
As hurried dusk eschews the light
Flaming reds and charming yellow
Makes Fall a vain and preening fellow
But jealous pines and evergreens
Pout beneath the earthy sheens
As aspens promenade away
To loose their clothes in winter's sway
Fall fashion fades as last leaves hover
Yielding to a snowy cover
As blizzard winds and frigid nights
Glaze the trees at mountain heights
Autumn’s Breath
Autumn's breath brings winter's chill
Blowing summer's greening still
Once green leaves turn yellow brown
And lose their grip, die on the ground
The new chilled air, not frigid yet
Brings first fine frosts, a frozen wet
But Autumn is a preening fellow
He waxes red, and wanes in yellow
His first cool breath brings faint fall tints
That give our mountain subtle hints
Of winter's wending wild white ridges
Where once were autumn's leafy bridges
So soon the yellow fades away
Blown through naked branches sway
To time and nature's lovely dance
Suspended in new winter's trance
Autumn is King
The promise of Summer
Is Winter’s cold dream
Awakened by Springtime
And warm weather’s gleam
But the promise of Winter
Was more like an oath
Fields that lay fallow
Give birth to new growth
That growth is what feeds us
Dug up by the plow
We eat what we earn
By the sweat of our brow
Before Winter’s return
Autumn must reap
While farmers sow promise
The earth knows to keep
Fulfilling the promise
Of Winter’s retreat
And Springtime’s awakening
Of all that we eat
Our lives have their seasons
We’re born and we die
Between those two milestones
Their meanings must lie
Discontent is our Winter
Hope is our Spring
Fulfillment is Summer
But Autumn is king
It asks a new question:
Have we harvested well?
And trust that beyond us
Green fields also dwell?
Winter’s Coming
Fall colors fade in windy nights
Festoon the Rocky Mountain heights
As autumn spirals from Wyoming
Jealous pine trees, prickly green
And once shy Aspens show new sheen
That give the Rockies yellow combing
Where autumn leaves have come to die
They make a wild and raucous cry
Hues and colors, gold erosion
Aspens that were once but hidden
By thick pines emerge unbidden
To one last yellow wild explosion
Now we mourn fair weather's days
Enfolding warmth and suns would graze
On skies that sparkled from new dawn
Then creeping down from cold Wyoming
Slides a white and frigid gloaming
Of snowdrifts born from blizzard's spawn
Now frigid nights with faint fall tints
Will give the mountains subtle hints
Of winter's wending wild white ridges
If mountains' winters are a chasm
That lead to Spring's new melting spasm
Autumn makes the leafy bridges
Cool windless nights and fall's faint hues
Bid mountain creatures hear the news
Of coming cold and aspen's trance
And soon the yellow fades away
Replaced by naked branches sway
To time and nature's frigid dance
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Indian Summer
Sometime between late September
And even into cold November
When it seems that green summer's lost
Glazed white by winter's first fine frost
There comes a falsely warming time
When coldness leaves the autumn clime
When right before true winter's onus
Comes a thawing, lovely bonus
What was green, now red and gold
The sparkling sun makes dead leaves bold
And bracing dawn brings steaming breath
Shorter days bring daylight's death
But, oh, that joyful midday time
Where silver sun brings summer's mime
And winter days bad memories
As golden leaves wave at the breeze
We stretch before yon winter's nap
As earth becomes the sunlight's tap
A last hurrah before we sleep
Before snow comes, white blankets creep
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Fallen leaves pass from Autumn
Reborn on patient trees
Incubating summer's promise
To sway in the warm summer breeze
They nourished new grasses by mulching
That sprout on the green warming ground
Changing the earth-scaped spring colors
To green from the former drab brown
Cold winter’s mean breath is away now
Replaced by the Spring’s soft caress
Sunflower-draped fields are a gold mine
Spread from their bright yellowing dress
Spring brings the rosy pink garland
That adorns the once-skeletal trees
Waiting for new pollination
From soft wind and the buzzing of bees
Everyone has their own favorite season
And mine will always be spring
And though I get older and grayer
Spring brings me a hopeful new fling
We're like those lost leaves in past autumn
But how can we measure our worth?
Our soul’s destination is hidden
But our bodies will go back to the earth
And nourish the flowers of springtime
As they sprout from nature's warm portal
Those children are our replacements
They're what makes us truly immortal
Spring Is Here
Mountain Spring
Spring grabs my mountains
By the scruffs of their peaks
Snow's surly retreat
Guards its rear as it leaks
To high tops where warm air
Can't breathe its warm breath
But cold gushing streams
Shout one winter's death
The glens and the valleys
Once brown and off-white
Sudden with greenness
Deny winter's blight
My mountains grab springtime
By the grist of its sun
And rotate through warm summer
Until bright autumn is done
