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My poem was about a leaf falling in between loneliness. This photo reflects a leaf among a tree where it doesn’t belong.

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It is deep autumn, My neighbor, how does he live, I wonder,A crow, on a withered branch, has settled on a bare branch, a crow is perched, autumn evening, no one travels along this way but I, This autumn evening

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Fall Song by Joy Harjo

It is a dark fall day.

The earth is slightly damp with rain.

I hear a jay.

The cry is blue.

I have found you in the story again.

Is there another word for ‘‘divine’’?

I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.

If I think behind me, I might break.

If I think forward, I lose now.

Forever will be a day like this

Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.

Slightly overcast

Yellow leaves

Your jacket hanging in the hallway

Next to mine.

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Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold  by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

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After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

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First Fall  by Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark

morning streets, I point and name.

Look, the sycamores, their mottled,

paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves

rusting and crisping at the edges.

I walk through Schiller Park with you

on my chest. Stars smolder well

into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,

the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.

Fall is when the only things you know

because I’ve named them

begin to end. Soon I’ll have another

season to offer you: frost soft

on the window and a porthole

sighed there, ice sleeving the bare

gray branches. The first time you see

something die, you won’t know it might

come back. I’m desperate for you

to love the world because I brought you here.

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November for Beginners by Rita Dove

Snow would be the easy

way out—that softening

sky like a sigh of relief

at finally being allowed

to yield. No dice.

We stack twigs for burning

in glistening patches

but the rain won’t give.

So we wait, breeding

mood, making music

of decline. We sit down

in the smell of the past

and rise in a light

that is already leaving.

We ache in secret,

memorizing

a gloomy line

or two of German.

When spring comes

we promise to act

the fool. Pour,

rain! Sail, wind,

with your cargo of zithers!

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A Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now

how comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of the air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don’t you think

the trees, especially those with

mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep

inside their bodies? And don’t you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

stiffens and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its long blue shadows. The wind wags

its many tails. And in the evening

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

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Merry Autumn by Paul Laurence Dunbar

It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell

About the breezes sighing,

And moans astir o’er field and dell,

Because the year is dying.

Such principles are most absurd,—

I care not who first taught ’em;

There’s nothing known to beast or bird

To make a solemn autumn.

In solemn times, when grief holds sway

With countenance distressing,

You’ll note the more of black and gray

Will then be used in dressing.

Now purple tints are all around;

The sky is blue and mellow;

And e’en the grasses turn the ground

From modest green to yellow.

The seed burrs all with laughter crack

On featherweed and jimson;

And leaves that should be dressed in black

Are all decked out in crimson.

A butterfly goes winging by;

A singing bird comes after;

And Nature, all from earth to sky,

Is bubbling o’er with laughter.

The ripples wimple on the rills,

Like sparkling little lasses;

The sunlight runs along the hills,

And laughs among the grasses.

The earth is just so full of fun

It really can’t contain it;

And streams of mirth so freely run

The heavens seem to rain it.

Don’t talk to me of solemn days

In autumn’s time of splendor,

Because the sun shows fewer rays,

And these grow slant and slender.

Why, it’s the climax of the year,—

The highest time of living!—

Till naturally its bursting cheer

Just melts into thanksgiving.

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Haiku by Basho

It is deep autumn

My neighbor

How does he live, I wonder.

A crow
has settled on a bare branch --
autumn evening (Robert Haas)

On a withered branch
A crow is perched
In the autumn evening      (RH Blyth)

No one travels

Along this way but I,

This autumn evening.