Ramara in Autumn by Bradley McIlwain

blue birds
cut
and hover

over rich
reds
and pumpkin

leaves —
swell
with lush

lilies lying
nude
along the cold

stream, peeling
effigies
of a great painter.

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Bradley McIlwain  is a Canadian-based writer and poet who lives and works in rural Ontario. His poems have been published in national and international print and online magazines. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Honours, from Trent University, with a major in English Literature. His first book of poems, Fracture, is now available. (Link in “Fracture”.)

Blessing by Carla Martin-Wood

In this forest where
vermilion autumn
burns to embers
yet another year
my boots have worn
a long accustomed path

I marked the berries
going red
the sorrel’s tattered flame
and yet I failed
to see or take
good note of that
which startles
and takes my breath
this morning

within a tiny clearing
visible just now
through thinning brush
this tree so
small and low and lit
by fleeting brilliance
of the rising sun
that turns to gold
with Midas beam
each slender branch

not leaf
nor bird
nor even bark
disturbs its spare design
nor mars
its pale and polished
limbs that lift
as to relinquish all
to heaven at last
in seeming praise
or longing

o make me thankful
for this gift
of emptiness
this gift of
light.

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Four times nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Carla Martin-Wood is the author of the recently released Songs from the Web (encore), as well as One Flew East, Flight Risk and How we are loved, all full-length collections of her poetry (Fortunate Childe Publications). She has authored seven chapbooks: Songs from the Web (Bitter Wine Press); Garden of Regret and Redheaded Stepchild (both Pudding House Chapbook Series); Feed Sack Majesty, HerStory, and The Last Magick (all Fortunate Childe Publications); and Absinthe & Valentines (Flutter Press). Carla’s work also appears in the following anthologies:   Love Poems & Other Messages for Bruce Springsteen and Casting the Nines (both Pudding House Publications); Lilith: a collection of women’s writes and Postcards from Eve (both Fortunate Childe Publications); and From the Front Porch (Silver Boomer Books). Her work has appeared in a plethora of journals in the US, England, and Ireland since 1978. She was recently nominated by Flutter Poetry Journal for Best of the Net 2010. Carla is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory at http://www.pw.org

“Blessing” was originally published in How we are loved (Fortunate Childe Publications, 2010).

Photo of sunlit cottonwood sapling by Saul Karamesines.

Guest Post: “When Autumn’s Through,” by Karen Kelsay

I cannot kick a mound of maple leaves
or see a pumpkin peeking from the vine
before the frost and not remember hills
where summer laid her green. A distant line

of poplars gleams like curtains made of coins;
it shakes at passing clouds. And everywhere
the magpie hops, I see another sign
of hawthorns beckoning the winter air

to breathe upon the fields. It once was mine,
that sweet transition only autumn knows.
The one that holds the oak limbs silently,
embracing every chilly breeze that blows.

It leads me into mottled shadows of
a deeper hue, where nothing seems so true
as winter’s birth. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse
of it beneath the vines, when autumn’s through.

Guest Post: “Hymn of Autumn,” by Karen Kelsay

When the moon becomes a mellow pear
on twilight’s bough, and stars swirl up like maple leaves
before they’re swept into the dawn, I’ve often
walked this garden where the voice of whippoorwills

would carry remnant melodies across long, dusky
hours. At times I feel this eastern breeze has lifted
me, somehow, beyond the soft-lit sloping fields
and conifer lined hills. To lands where only goldenrod

has known me by my smile, and dampness soothes
the head of every yellow aster bloom. Tonight, before
the morning’s crest of ruby will extend through broken
clouds, I whisper prayers again to autumn:
take me there once more.

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“Hymn to Autumn” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.   It was published in Joyful!, an online Christian magazine, in October.

For Karen’s bio, go here.   (Scroll down to end.)