Hoosier Autumn
October! Morning nips and noontime burns;
Crisped, sere, dun cornstalks fall beneath the scythe;
Chrysanthemums blaze as the woodland turns
To living flame, a golden land of myth:
Bright yellow birch and beech and tulip-tree,
Red sugar-maple, rainbow sassafras,
And flame-orange pumpkins fattened lusciously
Like Hesperides’ fruit, strewn on parched grass.
No other season’s bounty can compare
With your delicious richness where scents teem:
Faint, pungent smoke commingles in the air
With loamy, mossy clouds of earth-born steam
And mellow over-ripeness. You entice
With tastes—wild mushrooms, apples’ sweet bouquet,
Rich pumpkin and persimmon tinged with spice,
Sharp sassafras, and earthy roots’ array.
Your lengthened shades; your light’s diminishing;
Your rush of dead leaves’ rustling, soft cascades;
Your fog-swathed morn, south-fleeing geese on wing,
And deep, chill nights of golden moon-tinged shades
Shroud the once-blooming world in mystery.
Its woods and fields now made a living tomb,
Draped in the dusk of death’s dread majesty,
Where wandering ghosts and haunting demons loom.
At their thought children scream in half-delight,
Rapt in the thrill of terror’s first mild taste,
While those more seasoned pray eternal light
For all souls gone where nature now makes haste.
Yet thrill of young and somberness of old
But fringe the brilliance of this season, rife
With all delicious, while the world gleams gold—
The sweet last gasp of color, warmth, and life.
Would that your season lengthened past its time,
This beauteous dying not yield finally
To that inevitable death whose clime
Is ice and snow, unhued austerity.
But the dying must die, and this world so filled
With one last surge of life too soon must fade.
Yet winter’s razing leaves new spring to build
And grow until your gold shines forth, remade.
Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. He has published four books of poetry and his poems, essays, and fiction have appeared in various literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.
“Superabundant” is the defining word for your “Hoosier Autumn,” Adam. Although you address “October” in the first line, the seasonally rich description moves toward November as Halloween passes to All Souls (without celebrating either) in the fourth stanza. By then you’ve already brought on the seasoned themes of death and cyclical renewal so masterfully compressed into the poem’s last two lines. Timely perfection!
Would that your season lengthened past its time,
This beauteous dying not yield finally
To that inevitable death whose clime
Is ice and snow, unhued austerity.
But the dying must die, and this world so filled
With one last surge of life too soon must fade.
Yet winter’s razing leaves new spring to build
And grow until your gold shines forth, remade.
That’s my favorite stanza in this sensual tour de force of my second favorite season. Well, done, Adam.