Tag: Nature

November the Penultimate


November the Penultimate

Never was a month so motley in its days:
November, penultimate month
of a year that frames the seasons,
when leaves in early days
turn to brightest garnet,
blazing topaz,
illuminated gold —

the latter days arrive
with the fire of the winds,
and the burning leaves take the plunge
from infernal towers of the branches
to the burial grounds of a gun-
metal, brumal earth —

November, November,
calves ache from the marathon,
hearts pound the door
to another December

when holly berries huddle upon the petals
of the soft-spoken snow,
and the fallen leaves breathe again
at the sound of the carols of the children,
the children rejoicing.

D. G. Vachal © 2013

Photography Credit: November’s Decline by Bucaneve

Colors of Autumn

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&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Nature’s Chase

Nature’s Chase

In the ivory warmth of summer
while frogs croak among the lily pads
and rustling leaves make harp-like music,
two squirrels scamper in a sprint
one behind the other:

scurrying sounds, a tangled mass of fur,
a frenzied steeple chase
across freshly mown grass,
then up the leaf-laden tree branches
and down again,
vanish into the swampy woods —

In the utmost heat of summer’s day
while orange-winged cicadas buzz and whine
and nikko blue hydrangeas droop from drought,
two swallows break forth in ecstatic flight
one behind the other:

chirps and gurgles, a tangled mass of feathers,
ferris wheels in the air
as they traverse gabled roofs,
alight leaf-laden tree branches
and up again,
vanish into the azure sky —

Have you witnessed nature’s chase?

There is a time
for playful pursuit,
a time
for slowing down,
to gaze into each other’s eyes,
walk hand in hand,
vanish
into the emerald forest.

D. G. Vachal © 2025

Image by Flo222 @pixabay

“Petals Under Moonlight”



Petals Under Moonlight

Petals under moonlight
on a night when the month of May
is blooming:
owls play their piccolos
upon the branches,
crickets, their castanets
upon the watery grass —

Rejoice
in the muted colors of the petals,
foliage,
sepals,
beneath the cloak of temporal
greyness —

When daylight alights,
the greening of things
innumerable will blaze
across the fields of this fertile
continent,
drenched in the early rain,
warmed by the beams of the morning
sunlight.

D. G. Vachal © 2013, 2025

Photo Credit: Richard Thripp