Late October / Sylvester Baxter

Late October

Out of my window I look down
Into the yard of my neighbor,
My friend, the parish priest across the way,
And this is the picture I see:
A glowing maple rising like a fountain
Out of the emerald lawn rimmed by a close-clipped hedge
Of darker green.

All gray the sky is, but the maple
Gleams like spray in sunlight.
Out of its blazing mass
The leaves are showering
Like the sparks that fly when a smouldering fire is stirred.
They lie in drifts upon the grassy verdure
Like lightly fallen snow of gold;
They powder the sombre green of the hedge
As gilded confetti might powder the head
Of some strangely dark-haired beauty.

~~
Sylvster Baxter (1850-1927)

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Sylvester Baxter biography