0195 Autumn Gardener

Gathering rosebuds with my rake; the wooden tines scraping over the gravel path bringing a token of order to the autumn of a life; rosebuds, nipped at the neck by frost; dead leaves curled like begging or covetous hands, coloured like rich memories, red, orange, brown, dry husks, spilt seed, now crisp, eager to surrender to the fire, its scented smoke curling like a pyre against a cold blue sky now welcoming a tidy offering up; how clean, how sharp the autumn air darker under the trees the leaves still wet limp and flat as hope defeated, pressed together as words not meant, or something missed; next year the leaves will remember innocence, the tree broader, eager, brown as wisdom tipped with exploratory green. gathering rosebuds with my rake the season with its woodsmoke, evocative, tempting to metaphor, hovering, a garden of lost meaning; no longer, this cooling autumn, a construction, but speaking its own seriousness. how clean, how sharp the autumn air scented by surrender