Autumn in Dorset, Vermont
by Elayne Clift

Amber, gold, rust, red, robin’s egg blue,
Green fields draped with baguettes of morning dew.
Berry branches, white picket fences,
Window boxes wild with life,
A chipmunk perched quiet,
Crickets in riot,
Bird songs sweet and new.
A country lane of pumpkin-trimmed clapboard
With three somber mares in stalls,
While somewhere, in solitude,
A single chestnut falls.
Nearby, a lone yellow leaf floats down,
This way and that,
Silent with autumn’s eternity,
Before the glow falls flat.
And the scent of chimney smoke rising,
Oblivious, foreshadowing chill,
Hasn’t reached the mountains yet,
They are gloriously regal still.
Amber, gold, rust, red, skies bluer than blue,
Give me a Dorset morning, I’ll yield a spirit renewed.




Previously appeared in the author’s 1999 self-published collection, Other People, Other Lands.




 

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