Pause for poetry:
Michael Hawkes /11
Autumn
A poem by Michael Hawkes
Who can deny
That trees are sad
When losing leaves
To Autumn winds;
When sap runs dry
And limbs are tired
Of straining to
The cold winds’ whims;
When heart wood rots
To dust within,
When siblings have to
Prop them up,
When bark peels off
In sheets then drops?
Who can tell
Of trees’ despair
Enduring Winter’s ogling stare,
Unsheltered, naked, standing there
On carpets of their foliage?
Who can tell
If trees know time;
That Fall is but a solemn stage,
That Spring may well reverse decline?
Or do they suffer with mankind
And share an arboreal rage?
28/09/20 Hawkes
Feature image: Andrew Burlone
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Michael Hawkes is an 80-year-old survivor of all the world’s wars. He learned (and loved to rhyme) by torturing the hymns he had to sing at school. A retired West Coast fisherman living in Montreal since 2013, he is an unschooled Grandpa Moses writing an average of five poems every week.
I love this man’s poems. Wordsworth himself would have appreciated their
lovely lyrical tribute to Nature! Can’t wait for more.