Tipi Standing Starkly at Dawn

Softly mist surrounds the standing tipi

Red ribbons stilled and unmoving

Trailing down from poles starkly sentinel

Till the barest breath of a breeze

Gently lifts them with a token motion.

All around the pine trees standing tall

Branches moist with a fine foggy rain,

A squirrel scampers scurrying across the grass

Intent on hiding a prized walnut

That is clasped within strong jaws.

He is gone as fast as he came, concealed

In the underbrush of the wooded foliage,

Moving in more mist circles the lodge poles tall

Against the sky joins the earth below

To a sad somber grey canopy above.

Lush green grasses abound all around me

Blend out toward the thick forest floor,

Here and there branches of rust, red, golden leaves

Mingle starkly against the green palette,

Pine needles lying in large swathes dead.

The grass has slowed its summer growth

Now barely worth the effort to cut again,

The toil of long mowing days finally came to an end

As the crispness of chill air all around lay

Resting upon the once warmed earth below.

Mushrooms, toadstools, assorted fungi

Peep out from where they laid dormant

Under layering blankets of covering protective earth

Quickly they push through then perish

The last offerings picked for this season.

No more will they be sought out for food

Medicines of the ones who roam the land,

Caches of dried roots, seeds, plants all carefully stored

Safely for the coming long winter moons

Silence is upon the land waiting expectedly.

For the sadness is upon me once more

As the autumn leaves color up vividly

In their death throes of exquisite beauty, slowly decay,

A final shuddering as the wind shakes,

Leaves fall, then cold pierces my heart.

The long nights are upon us all now

As all are preparing for the first falling

Snow that is to come shortly to cover, then blanket,

Enfolding all that it touches and protects

Till spring’s loving warm breath awakens

.………………………. (c) CBJ