Some autumn poems to set the post summer mood...

Autumn by William Carlos Williams

A stand of people
by an open

grave underneath
the heavy leaves

celebrates
the cut and fill

for the new road
where

an old man
on his knees

reaps a basket-
ful of

matted grasses for
his goats.

This is a wintry one by Seamus Heaney but I like it for the mood

Sloe Gin by Seamus Heaney

The clear weather of juniper
darkened into winter.
She fed gin to sloes
and sealed the glass container.

When I unscrewed it
I smelled the disturbed
tart stillness of a bush
rising through the pantry.

When I poured it
it had a cutting edge
and flamed
like Betelgeuse.

I drink to you
in smoke-mirled, blue-
black sloes, bitter
and dependable.


Burning the Small Dead by Gary Snyder

Burning the small dead
branches
broke from beneath
thick spreading
whitebark pine.
A hundred summers
snowmelt rock and air
hiss in a twisted bough.

And of course the great Matsuo Basho

Autumn moonlight

Autumn moonlight--
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.