A love letter to death,
Penned in crimson and gold,
And for one fleeting moment
We return to what’s old.

The distant crescent moon
Is her alabaster smile,
And I plead, if she can hear,
“Won’t you please stay awhile?”

But heed she does not,
For December’s hour is nigh,
Though she leaves me her smile
To remember her by.

And when I think back with longing
On our golden reverie,
She reminds me through the leaves
Memento mori…

The river of time is fathomless long,
In funereal shades of violet and grey,
Lie faces once handsome and bodies once strong,
Now six feet under our own they will stay.

This flaxen lock or this downy hand,
All beauty shall wilt when his Stygian touch
Caresses you slow; after years in the sand
You'll find only winter within his bleak clutch.

Cheeks that once warmed and delighted in mirth,
Now are bloodless and pallid décor for his crypt,
Dreams that were dreamed, for all they were worth
Now float in his deluge, their passion all stripped.

Thus we whisper sweet prayers for God's saving grace,
That our acts prove eonian and true,
For our works, once born in the light of His face
Will ne'er grow dark with Death's hue.

Her diadem jewel is the morning rain
That falls from a pale, gilded sky,
'Tis also her earthy-sweet herald
Telling all that autumn grows nigh.

The wood is dressed for the harvest,
Her crimson and umber aglow,
In the thicketed manse of the raven,
Where all the world's mysteries grow.

My autumn is found in a candle,
Sagacity cloaked in its light,
Her flame warms me deep to the marrow,
Through all of the dark, blessed night.

I wish I hailed from mountains tall,
Their shadow so great that I felt small,
I'd climb o'er the rock and breathe the thin air,
Their milky white peaks as arms stretched in prayer.

I wish I hailed from forests deep,
Where foxes lurk and fairies sleep,
The white-speckled shroom would be my dear friend,
And that green-wooded trail, ne'er would it end.

Yet I was not born where the mountain winds blow,
Nor up from the damp forest floor did I grow,
My homeland is open, sprawling and wide,
With no hills to crest, 
Nor places to hide.

But if you look closely, and your eyes were made keen,
You will spy its beauty somewhere in-between.
In the change of the seasons,
Or the lilt of the breeze, 
Or as goldenrod sheds her warm glow o’er the trees.

In the loneliest hours between evening and night, 
When the mourning dove sings under harvest moon’s light,
You will see its true beauty as the crops grow and die,
For the prairie is honest, and cannot tell a lie.

I can still smell that midsummer’s air,
When I was too young to know or to care,
My unruly hair bled down to my waist,
A fierce, Celtic summer
with Ohio’s face.

The mourning dove sang with her lilt and her sway,
While I let the sun pierce my soft skin with her ray,
I peer’d into heaven that day as a child,
And He promised to me that I’d always be wild.

Earth on my hands and fire in my heart,
The woodland and I were ne’er far apart,
Her soft, heady voice would whisper my name
As if her soul and mine were one and the same.

Where the thistle and cressleaf grow thick underfoot
And the flicker of candles all dusted with soot
Welcome autumn at last, drenched in honey and mirth
As I breathe the wild air that shall be my rebirth.

If I were dancing down the streets of Montmartre
While the rain paved its way down my cheeks
The bitter taste of mascara in my mouth
Made sweet by the blur of the lights
Would I then feel whole?

If the only worries I had
Were catching the evening train from Lyón to Lille,
The smudge of brown lipstick on my teeth,
Or an overpriced café au lait,
Would I then be as I once was?

That’s when I tell myself
That my thoughts are traitorous.
No matter where I am
Whether it be Paris or Appalachia
Whether the walls are made of gold or cinderblock
My sorry soul will always want for more.

There is no “as I once was,”
For even when I was living there
In a memory that nostalgia has long since warped to her own design,
That girl across the sea in the city of lights
Felt the same longing
As I feel now.