Gray Season by J.M.Driscoll

Air chilled, musty from rain

Shivers a sparrow’s puffed breast as she

Beaks the last cracked amber seeds

From the sun-faded terra-cotta dish atop

The cedar table where we ate-drank-laughed…

Grain, now weathered, edges worn,

Afternoons and evenings preserved in faint rings, burgundy stained.

The gray that blankets after summer’s defeat

Fades emerald hues,

A momento-mori darkening my spirit.

And after I’ve mourned the wild flowers-withered

The shifting wind offers a gift—

A palm-sized maple leaf, softly felled

Ochre veined and crimson dipped.