Requiem

Phillip Brown

Autumn has passed away,
departed unseen,
just as it arrived.

It is silent and still now,
as dead things are—
everything wrapped
in a delicate shroud
of frost.

The aspen's leaves
have fallen—leaves
once gold,
now the deeper shades
of cinders and ashes,
like sodden newspapers,
like faded photographs—
littered over the soil
and caught in the grass.

Some have strayed
onto the patio, scattered
over the long table
and under the empty chairs
that face each other—
emptied of their company:
the candles blown out,
the guests long gone home.

The tree stands exposed
and bare,
like the few smoldering remains
of a burned down house,
a November haze
lingering like fire-smoke
in its branches.

The light is hushed and dim,
mourning without a voice,
lingering like a friend
bent over the soft body of the earth.

And then the snow
descends—

hour after hour,
layer after layer:

heavy sheets of white
laid reverently over
the ground
by two great hands of sky,
covering slowly autumn's form.

So begins the burial.