Theme and Variations

Theme: A Traveler's Meditation (an amphion pattern)

God's handiwork is all around:
bright red leaves,
wheat in sheaves.
Fertile farms where flocks abound;
shaded cows
chew and drowse;
mountains' multi-colored dress;
thunderclouds
draped in shrouds:
God's bounteous works are limitless.

Variation I Highway 23 in Autumn (a Neville pattern)

God's handiwork is all around:
in scarlet, yellow leaves
and golden wheat in sheaves.
Sun-burnished pasturelands abound;
leafy groves shading cows
that switch and chew and drowse.
God's goodness--in all life--profound.

Variation II Same Time Each Year (Neville)

The autumn beauty's everywhere--
magenta, scarlet leaves,
bronzed stands of wheat in sheaves;
sun-burnished pastures, fragrant air;
umbrellaed groves whose boughs
shade drowsy brindle cows--
Creation's annual fall afffair.

Variation III Autumn Song (pantoum)

God's handiwork is all around
magenta, scarlet, yellow leaves;
sun-burnished pasturelands abound,
Cut, ripened wheat stands bronzed in sheaves.

Magenta, scarlet, yellow leaves,
umbrella groves of sassafras,
Cut, ripened wheat stands bronzed in sheaves--
a visual banquet unsurpassed.

Umbrella groves of sassafras,
a camouflage for brindle cows,
(a visual banquet unsurpassed)
which nonchalantly chew and drowse.

Like Garland's fresh-shaved stubble, gold,
sun-burnished pasturelands abound,
and I sing with the oriole,
"God's handiwork is all around."

Variation IV An Autumn Minute (a minute pattern)

The autumn beauty's everywhere--
in fragrant air,
magenta leaves,
bronzed wheat in sheaves.
Sun-burnished pastures stubbled gold,
lone oriole,
umbrellaed groves
--bovine alcoves--
a visual banquet unsurpassed,
a rich repast.
All senses share
fall's love affair.

c lovepatpress 2009 from the chapbook, variations, 1995