The Hounds of Autumn
Autumn’s hawk flies free,
Shredding the rain.
Each inconsequential fleck of water falls,
Unmissed,
With nary a ripple into the ditches.
It clings to my hair,
My gloves,
My boots.
A coat of mithril draped over my overalls,
Taken from the halls of Autumn.
The cold gnaws at my fingertips,
The wind sinks its teeth into my bones,
And the frost breaths on my feet.
Walking down the tunnel of trees,
The wind keeps in step a little way behind.
It breaks into a run and whirls past,
Now pursued by a horde of wild dogs.
The hounds of Autumn blow past me.
They pluck and tear
At my overalls.
It is not the cold at my fingertips,
The frost at my feet,
Or the wind in my bones.
It is the freezing jaws of the dogs.
They hound me across the fields,
Baying in my ears,
Howling through the treetops,
Slithering through the grass:
All the while dragging Autumn himself
In his chariot of rotting wood.
The scraps of rain swirl with the dead leaves.
Even at home, Autumn rides at my back.
His mad hunt
Rattles the glass in the windows,
Stirs the fire in the grate,
And gallops through the crack under the door.
The hounds of Autumn
Ride this evening.
