Autumn Poem by Jay Kasturi

Autumn in the northern woods.
Like a frightened gypsy girl,
her golden bands and scarlet scarf,
wild dark eyes and curls of clouds,
toe rings of silver streams
below the deep blue sky seams
all in a motley frantic swirl.

A swift lonely flight
under the lantern’s slanting light,
till she, against the looming bleakness
is ravished into shocked stillness.
The silken hems tattered,
the sinuous lines shattered
into brown brittle leaves,
railing against the unheeding wind
to lie dazed in a rake’s pitiless claws,
with no memory of a florid glint.

1993)