R
Robert Harrison
Guest
AND THE LICKY HILLS WERE PAINTED AUTUMN
I walked in solitude ’neath trees whose arms and fingers were reft
and bare. Which once nursed with love, children born of Springs
sun and fed with nature’s milk. Now lying in colorful abandon on
that same earth which fed them. They in gratitude to sacrifice their
being to repay with their bodies, that which was given freely to them.
I, giving no thought to their unselfish sacrifice, did in thoughtless
abandon scatter them beneath my feet, and sent them a merry dance,
which to my ear did sound not unlike a maidens skirts as she, with
joyful laughter, did whirl in graceful circles to the music of the birds.
T’was then I looked behind to view my path, which meandered at
first in uncertain step, then, when childish impulse overtook to kick
and scuffle, to send uplifting the colors of Autumn. I did unveil
a sinister path of the dead and decaying memories, of balls that had
come and gone in all of the mists of Autumns dances.
Aside me rose a hillside of color, the pallet of the painter, who with
an artists eye mixed pigments of a promised masterpiece, and with a
touch of his brush here and a touch there I stood and viewed my present.
And I stopped and looked about, and my heart leapt within my bosom.
I felt alive, reborn to a world, not of my making, nor indeed to any man’s,
but to blessed Autumn, the third great artist of the Seasons. He who must
by public demand, fill his pictures with the smells of Autumn, of wood
smoke, and sounds of the sky’s feathered wonders who migrate to climes
unimagined.
Putting all thoughts of solitude behind me, I walked as a young man,
kicking in gay abandon the sacrificial children of the trees, sending them
once again to a merry dance as I, in youthful impulsiveness, joined myself
to the swish of skirt in merry whirling to the lyrical music of birdsong.
And the leaves of Autumn rose in one last waltz.
I walked in solitude ’neath trees whose arms and fingers were reft
and bare. Which once nursed with love, children born of Springs
sun and fed with nature’s milk. Now lying in colorful abandon on
that same earth which fed them. They in gratitude to sacrifice their
being to repay with their bodies, that which was given freely to them.
I, giving no thought to their unselfish sacrifice, did in thoughtless
abandon scatter them beneath my feet, and sent them a merry dance,
which to my ear did sound not unlike a maidens skirts as she, with
joyful laughter, did whirl in graceful circles to the music of the birds.
T’was then I looked behind to view my path, which meandered at
first in uncertain step, then, when childish impulse overtook to kick
and scuffle, to send uplifting the colors of Autumn. I did unveil
a sinister path of the dead and decaying memories, of balls that had
come and gone in all of the mists of Autumns dances.
Aside me rose a hillside of color, the pallet of the painter, who with
an artists eye mixed pigments of a promised masterpiece, and with a
touch of his brush here and a touch there I stood and viewed my present.
And I stopped and looked about, and my heart leapt within my bosom.
I felt alive, reborn to a world, not of my making, nor indeed to any man’s,
but to blessed Autumn, the third great artist of the Seasons. He who must
by public demand, fill his pictures with the smells of Autumn, of wood
smoke, and sounds of the sky’s feathered wonders who migrate to climes
unimagined.
Putting all thoughts of solitude behind me, I walked as a young man,
kicking in gay abandon the sacrificial children of the trees, sending them
once again to a merry dance as I, in youthful impulsiveness, joined myself
to the swish of skirt in merry whirling to the lyrical music of birdsong.
And the leaves of Autumn rose in one last waltz.
