Autumn in Flaming Glory

Three sister fairies born of Pan,
Adorned in leaves of saffron hue,
The fiersome wind a flowing fan,
Through maple trees and yew.

Their clothes alight in orange blaze,
Their flight in twirling pirouettes,
Entranced in blissful wind borne craze,
Three sylphs of air like jets.

The eldest sister, Magdalene,
With flowing hair of brown,
Providing sprightly leadership,
Through forest vale and town…

“We help the sighing leaves of green,
Who, spent in summer’s blazing glow,
Prepare for rest in darker sheen,
When loosed to earth they go.

We sing their funerary rite,
We cry for their spent gifts,
As from the tree they sail in flight,
When done the season shifts.

We love the fire in which they die,
The leaves with veins, in burning red,
It’s death’s brave beauty we espy,
As autumn’s tint is bled.

The ground a funerary pyre,
We pray for seasons past,
The crumpled bodies soon transpire,
In mounds of litter vast.

We ride the wind as though a steed,
And gallop in the season’s breath,
From service unto summer freed,
The leaves dry up in death.

My little sisters, Dawn and Grace,
They follow on my trail,
Painting ochre in the trees,
At autumn’s holy grail.

This is our apex and our bliss,
Our magic and our might,
We swoon at autumn’s rosy kiss,
And frolick in the light…”

ADL