A Warm and Cheerful Wake

It is a beautiful autumn Sunday
The afternoon light is shallow and clear
Over a ways, an acorn plummets interrupted
Down through the oak leaves to thump the ground
The maple tinged yellow is jittery in a breeze
That can only be sensed by ebbing leaves
Two craggy mountain peaks peer over the rooftops
Turning tawny in the face of advancing cold
Armed with a host of giant pines waiting for winter to spring
He is coiled now, in each crook of every branch
In the gusts of the morning and calm of the night
Purring softly in the scent of burning leaves
From the autumn funeral pyres always present, never seen
The insects are gone, the birds are beginning to go
We are immobile in our stoic routines
As snowtime advances, as sunlight saps away
We will wander daily through nature's annual graveyard
And the leaves will fall, resigned to old age
And the acorns will plummet down to thump
Upon the ground with a fading orange finality