The End of Autumn

Leaves, like shriveled butterflies,
ride on the last of the autumn sighs,
beyond the reach of birches grasping
with white fingers, while crows rasping
winter incantations, invoke the wind
of the northern wastes now to send
their coldness upon these muted lands;
spruce-maidens wring their tender hands
and shudder together in their green dresses,
as the wind blows wild the golden tresses
of broomsedge copses, beneath the moon
that trespassed the bounds of day too soon,
and now sails high in the gloaming skies
as the last fire of autumn serenely dies.