The orange lances of the day’s last sunlight
Bathed blackened trees grasping
At the sky like dead fingers

I walked on ground covered
With dead leaves, golden-white;
Dreamlike Empyrean fields

I walked past trees with
Little candle-like leaves burning down
The length of their branches

Bushes like frozen fires
Red and orange foliage
Flickering in a sudden breeze

Ducks stationed like soldiers
On an opaque slate river
Webbed feet splayed on a pebbly creek bottom

I passed a stone staircase,
A many-layered cake, river-bound,
With an orange leaf frosting

Trees gave way to a plain of golden grass;
Far distant, the indigo silhouettes
Of trees against a violet mountainside

The daylight fails, and somewhere
A train whistles, a lost puppy’s wail,
A wandering prodigal son

Overhead, unseen ducks quack
Their mallardian farewells as they leave
For summer homes in the Keys