In these last three weeks of gray and rain,
we have passed the peak of autumn.
Leaves that we knew could not stay
were knocked away in a downpour of rain and wind,
the pressing season spending colors
that could not hold for long.

We look now for different things,
seize view of these more subtle signs,
less stunning than the flame of maple and ash:

Throngs of blackbirds twirl in sky dance
above the fields,
a fringe of foxtail bends in the wind,
almost white in the light of cool sun,
bowing beside the field of soybeans
stark in their leafless stand for harvest.

A combine follows the bend
of the tree-lined creek,
swallowing its swath of husk and bean,
spewing stalks and stems,
a sweeping swirl of dust spinning into the breeze,
drifting across these terraced folds of dirt
and crop and promise.

When all of green and color is gone,
when all stands bare against the claiming day,
it is the harvest that matters,
the yield that lasts.

H. Arnett
11/5/09