Robert Charles Howard - Autumn Finale

Spare no lament for the maple leaves
that, defying their impending fall,
play blazing gold and scarlet concerts
bright as Christmas brass in marble halls.

How bold their radiant finales resound
deaf to the sweatered ones below
sweeping death away
with their treble scraping rakes -
raising smoldering pyres of the fallen.

Steamy plumes from cocoa mugs
blend with burning oak and maple wisps.
The rakers chant their own sweet airs,
"The colors surprised this year,
didn't think we'd had the rain."

So spare no lament for the maple leaves
who with jubilant anthems
raised beneath the harvest moon
herald their fall with rainbow alleluias.

Robert Charles Howard

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