How foolish was I last June
still clinging to a love of Spring.
All those maniacal mating months
acting like some May Queen Mary
apple-blossom cheeked
crowned with Chervil and Hawthorn
in a frock frothed white.
How clean and cold and clinical!
Those chromas all outshone by lurid tints
by gamboge, philamot, carnelian,
the gold of an October, bright with sunlight
as the young, the hot blooded,
take wing for Africa. Their leaving
makes the month quite mellow.
And still there is no blue
as blue as a November sky, the trees
gleeful with frost, crisping the last leaves
and the air. Then I too breathe deep
and sigh with satisfaction.
How foolish all that looking back,
the past just frozen snapshots, impressions
memorized as imprints on the eye.
All my soul's desirings are here,
now, in this season of feuille morte*
May It never End
And after May...but I wish for a never after
holding fast as Faust to that month's moments
when quiet lanes foam at the mouth with birdsong
froth-full of petal and wild chervil
Such an eruption of aqua vitae!
Pouring though every pore of earth
and in one rush of landscaping, readily spreads
like the ingénue's awkward blush
It is green loitering on the brink of solstice
neither tenderfoot nor a mature and motherly shade
- but really there are no words this side of purple
lest we tangle in hyperbole around the Maypole
Call me melancholic if you will.
For when the budding month is set to swell
bursting in a boisterous cannonade of confetti days
I flag the voyaging vessel with signals of distress
June comes now, spring-heeled and hot on the scent
of an all-too-soon, consummated summer.
Yet spin we must, in synchrony with time and motion
or forfeit the chance of heaven
- gamboge – leaves with a vivid yellow pigment as from a resin from an Asian tree
- philamot – derivative of feuille morte -a yellowish-orange-brown colour of dry leaves
- carnelian – leaves having a reddish-orange or brownish-red, like the colours often found in the quartz by that name
- feuille morte – literally dead leaf as per colour – see pronunciation.
For my MTB prompt: Backtracking Your Truth in which we write A Palinode which contradicts a previous poem’s ideas as this ode to Autumn which rescinds my June 2023 poem “May It never End“.
Note: Today is ‘Tell a Lie” day so none of it may be true!
PoetryPix 
What a wonderful image, and you really paint the wonder of each season (or age) with the most important part being to live in the now.
thank you Bjorn – it had to be a seasonal palinode for me since I probably feel most strongly about the natural world
I love both poems, Laura, but I really like the tone of the original, the looking back and the ‘past just frozen snapshots, impressions / memorized as imprints on the eye’. What I love about the palinode is the quiet lanes foaming at the mouth with birdsong ‘froth-full of petal and wild chervil’, it’s such a familiar image!
well yes Kim its tell a lie day and try as I might cannot quite act my Autumnal age – I love both though to tell the truth!
Beautifully done palinode, Laura! You show us how it’s done.
ahh thank you Dora for your encouragement – this was the only poem of mine I could find to Palinode to
WOW! Well both poems are remarkable! The second one, I think, is too beautiful to be a lie!!! Truly, these are both just gorgeous.
Lillian your very nice feedback made me smile broadly so thank you 😊
Love these lines: “Their leaving
makes the month quite mellow.
And still there is no blue
as blue as a November sky”
“How foolish all that looking back,
the past just frozen snapshots, impressions
memorized as imprints on the eye.”
hank you for picking out your preferences Melissa
We are as changeable as the weather. (K)
and hence can pen Palinodes!
Indeed.
Love the words. Jotting them down.
thank you for that Charley
You’re welcome!
Laura, I knew the yellow of autumn ginkgo leaves was special but didn’t know what it was called. I shall remember gamboge. Lovely writing and you lead the way with your poems as example.
many thanks Lisa – it was interesting taking the opposite view and running with it in colour!
You’re very welcome ❤
Love both of the poems, but especially that they are in conversation with each other. Also have to second what others said, and thank for all the new names of hues and shades I’ve learned from the poem.
yes they do converse – I like that! such lovely names some colours have – just suits your lexicon too
Our poems become true only when we’re dead … for now, starting out and revising course are the only hints of veracity we get. Sometimes it happens in a poem, sometimes between poems, as here. Revising can mean rehearsing differently or reversing completely, both equally useful in getting into the next room of the dream. Great challenge and response here.
thanks for your feedback Brendan – so much to digest too
Thank you for the neat form type prompt, I enjoyed writing for it and am hoping that I did it correctly. Until I got to the end verse I was thinking Hallucinations and Delusions.
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p.s. For a long time long time my Norton anti-virous had shut you out with a big red page. But now it’s okay, dunno why.
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I dislike Norton – it burrows deep into our computers and does its own thing like the ghost in the machine
thanks for your appreciation and for joining in Jim
Oh, wow! The gardener in you comes to the fore and how! I love all the colours and seasonal references and the closing stanzas of both the poems are spectacular. You show us how a palinode should be written.
what very nice feedback – many thanks from this gardener and Autumn watcher!
You are very welcome, Laura.