The quintessence of Autumn

Muddied rubber causes crisp shattered leaf spines;
as frigid air bites at exposed ears turned florid.
Whilst naked trees caress the air with animate arms,
relived of their conventional adornment of green.

Cameras capture the aesthetic of autumn weather,
as the scheming winds muss hair styles;
appropriating hats and summer in a bitter swipe,
but with more so mischief that malevolence.

Children resemble sentient laundry piles;
Being smothered by copious layers,
just like the gravel suffocating under inert leaves,
and the sun repressed by stubborn clouds :
masking its gift of warmth with bitter petulance.

Lady Autumn is the aged bark of the tallest tree,
The burnt orange and brown hues of brittle leaves.
She is the conversations round a fire in the dead of night:
The walks where the foliage shields you from light.

And she is that too, the light:
The suns irradiance behind clouds of off-white.
She is the song of the whispers in the wind,
yet the wolf-like howls in the night.

She is the collection of Conkers in old shopping bags:
The children dressed as ghosts, pumpkins and hags.
She is the bonfire and the dancing flames themselves,
She is the embodiment of a season and everything else.

I love Autumn because she is.
I long for her soothing breeze in summer,
and comforting fire in winter.
I wish for the sunset colours that spring lacks,
and I shall wait all year for her to come back.