Love Haiku 49:51
49
you have gone away
with torrential summer rains
fall river lies low
50
wind moans through the cliffs
murmurs through leafless birches
I whisper your name
51
dusk falls on water
golden colors linger long
I yearn for your smile
D. G. Vachal © 2025
Image by Aleksandr Gorlov, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Colors of Autumn
The turning of colors
like the turning of tides,
the waxing moon’s gradient shift
to fullness
in pearlescent light,
the chilly air’s osmosis
imperceptible,
permeating a blanket of warmth —
emeralds turn to topaz,
malachite to rubies,
nightingale songs grow faint
as in a moment’s dream —
I was here
many times before
and once again I am
swept in this lunatic array
of colors:
salmon and salamander,
citrine and vermilion,
french horns and trombone,
a cacophony of shades and tinctures —
these moments soon will pass
like many times before
yet for a little while
let me wrap myself
in the colors of Autumn:
Joseph’s coat
of many colors.
D. G. Vachal © 2025
Author’s note: This poem was inspired by a passage from “The Strings are False” by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice.
“The train for Jersey City was called the Blue Comet and I sat in a luxury Pullman car that was all windows and beyond the windows a reel of autumn madness, the maple trees gone drunk with colour. Tigers and wine, pimento, copper, coral, the bells of St. Clement’s jangling and fanfaronade of trumpets, fireworks out of the ground, Giorgione, Veronese, the tents of all the Sultans. People had told me about the American Fall, and this was it.” (“Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain, 1965, p. 30.”)
Image by: chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Love Haiku 46:48
46
as we walk, my love
September winds drift petals
in twinkling twilight
47
moonlight on the path
fragrance bends around the trees
our shadows linger
48
lavender breezes
the echo of your laughter
drifts into my heart.
D. G. Vachal © 2025
Image by Benjamin Kubitza @ Unsplash
The Years, My Friend
The years, my friend, have not been kind
upon your marble face —
I hear the river songs
tinkle with the cymbals,
I see your eyes shrivel
like unpicked grapes on the vine,
your mouth a wounded cherry
pecked by restless robins.
Take my hand, my friend,
let us go to the calling fields
that blaze with diamonds
under the eternal skies,
to the orchards in the midst of winter,
where leafless branches stand dauntless
in the endless cold,
telling jubilant tales
in the blizzard of their days —
Hearken to the legends
of root, of bud, of sun,
and to the promise
(believe the promise)
that warmth and springtime
will return,
(they always return)
once again.
by D. G. Vachal © 2013, 2025
*** Photography by Farhad
Waxing Moon and Summer’s Farewell
How swiftly the season turns:
moment passes by another moment
as in my elusive nighttime dreams,
all the while the ardor for life abides
though cooler breezes quench
the noonday fires —
I hear summer’s last melodies
edged with change
cedar waxwings whistle among the birches,
the meadow edge
hums with crickets and katydids,
mourning doves croon their yearning calls
into the twilight air —
evening approaches:
a waxing half moon sheds silver threads
upon the garden fronds,
forest trees cast blurred shadows,
open fields lie platinum pale
half radiant, half shrouded,
inlet waters quietly flow
into their appointed oceans
in albescent half-light —
last day of August
I stand at the precipice of summer’s departure
on a quarter moon evening,
revealing yet secretive
of what approaching Autumn holds.
D. G. Vachal © 2025
Image by W.carter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
lilies, sparrows and grass 
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