October Country
(As ever, for dear Mr. Bradbury)
Those children who are born to autumn
do not suffer spring, nor its greening glance.
Our shuttered eyes abjure the flotsam
joy of the petal storm, the pale presence
of purple-buttered thistle or clover honey
spread over summer’s deranged yellow heat.
We slip from the frozen grasp of winter’s cunny,
that pan-cracked, brittle, ice-slippered sweet,
deny the ceaseless renewal, the so-called grace
of each sorry songbird’s piercing April hymn,
and return to autumn’s apple-fired embrace,
its red-leaf feathered burnished golden limbs—
escaping winter, spring, and summer’s treasons,
forswearing that tyranny of marching seasons.
—SANDRA KASTURI
(Originally published Halloween, 2008.)
