Autumn poems: Neville Saylor, Marguerite Palmer, Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni

RHAPSODY IN AUTUMN
by (the late) Neville Saylor,
long-time member of Poets Roundtable of Arkansas

As Autumn's song drifts through the hills,
The trees in brilliant disarray
All dance to rhapsody which fills
Each moment of this perfect day.

My heart responds by beating time
While waltzing to her merry air,
As nature pipes a tune sublime
To lure me to a woody lair.

In sun-splashed beds of mossy green
Which hold the pale tenacious roots,
On paths that wear a frosty sheen
Above the tender sleeping shoots,

Let me lie as a dormant seed
To rest among the golden tones
As Autumn's music fills my need
Till Spring bursts forth to warm my bones.

~~ from Captive Harmony, by Hazel Gaither and Neville Saylor, 1995
~~~~~

AUTUMN IN THE OZARKS
by Marguerite Palmer, Little Rock,
PRA Honorary Member

The hollows are cloaked in blue-gray haze
shading to purple that matches blooms
of asters starring the dusty trail
where goldenrod waves feathered plumes.
Now softly plinking, the acorns fall;
and loudly cawing, the brash crow flies.
The night and the day share half and half
this time of the year when autumn lies
over the land and deep in the heart
so full to bursting it over-spills,
joining the medley of wild life song
when autumn comes to the Ozark hills.

~~ from Searching for the Key: Poems by Marguerite B. Palmer, 1999
~~~~

WHY WORRY?
by (the late) Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
former Poet Laureate of Arkansas

Yesterday is past.
Why should we turn
To watch the flames
Of the sunset burn?
The present is ours
For joy or for grief.
It falls at our feet
Like a dry autumn leaf.
Tomorrow, through seeming
Close-kindred to me,
Is a threat or a promise,
Which may never be!

~~ from Lend me your Ears: A Beakfull of Humorous Verse, by Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni,  1965-66