Curtis Jerry Smothers - Freelance Blogger/Tutor
Colorado Autumn Poetry
Autumn is my favorite time of year in Colorado. The greens change to 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
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
