And what is so rare?

And what is so rare as an October day?
More lovely than any in June or in May
When a steel-gray cloud sunset lights up the sky
And the bright bursts of leaves so entrancingly fly
The wild homeless birds most eerily call
Wings beat overhead as they flee from the fall
And the cool piercing wind makes you know you're alive;
It's in the year's ceasing the spirit best thrives.
Keep your glad summer, and give me the tall

ghosts of dark oaks as they cross-cut the sky
weird whistling winds and the warm smell of pie
misty-gray mornings and brief bold afternoons
when the sky is sketched out in unquenchable blue

I choose not to flee, nor follow the wingéd,
Though their sound in my ears is so merrily singing,
Some can depart and seek summers to be;
I stay to the end, for the dead barren tree

Without cause, there can be no thing
Sans autumn there will be no spring
Sans love there's nought left but strife
Without death, there can be no life

Autumn's the last glorious gold of farewell
to a slow-fading year with more secrets to tell
(There are years that ask questions, and there are years that answer)
And some years do both, and neither.

Stars burn brighter in the chilling night
The autumn days are brief but tinged with light
And we?  We wonder what is wrong and right;
For a moment in autumn we feel it.

Now is the sunset of the year, more splendid for promise of ceasing.
Take June if you will, but leave me the fall, when the soft burnt-leaf fires burn clear and call all who would feast of life's fill as we draw near wintry night -

In this season where days are most fair,
There's no way mere June can compare.

-LC