(landscapes Collection).... Autumn Trees Poem by Janice Windle

Draw back the curtain.
It’s a cold morning.
Grass, pistaccio
below the white rimmed hedge,
half hidden by a rug
of brown sugared leaves
crackling in the sun.

Scrape the windows,
warm the cold engine,
join the others on the frosty road,
out into the lanes,
to run the gauntlet of the trees,
that, now released
from summer’s green
are posed along the way,
their personalities in autumn
proudly on display.

The oaks
spread wide their twisted arms
from stocky trunks,
fragile fingers at the ends,
holding out last vestiges of gold.
Horse chestnuts,
still part-dressed in tarnished lime,
rub elbows with the willows,
stately in flowing robes of rusting green,
mediaeval queens
a little past their glowing prime.

The birches wear their stylish mottled bark
Like models on a catwalk, swaying,
Delicate hair draped on narrow frames.
And firs strut,
macho in their geometric forms,
as though to say,
“ We don’t fear any storms”.
But the beeches – oh the beeches –
flaming up, hot, burning hot,
eclipsing all the rest -
the beeches are the best!