For Day Thirteen of Paul Brookes’ Special January Ekphrastic Challenge, I’m Responding to “Second Autumn” (KR) and CO19.

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Unknown

Why is that sometimes spring and summer seem to come again,
but autumn only once?

The azure skies that fade into violet sighs,
the leaves of russet and gold, turn brown, fold within
leaving only a crunch—

they turn to dust.

Now I hear the geese in honking V, pull free time’s stitches—
land to sea.

And if I sit on moonlit porch—and listen–
will I hear the rustling ghosts of what was or what might have been?

A summer night. A picket fence. A snake. A bite.
Life or death? What happened after? What happened then?