On the Fringe of Autumn
Autumn has come. The sky is dry from the Summer and turned an Amber colour.
“Farewell, friends! It has been pleasant,” shout the crisp-brown Maple leaves as they leap from their branches and sail, elegantly down to the parched earth.
“How dramatic those Maples are, and they don’t even carry fruit!” snickered the Grey Squirrels to each other as they buried their nut-shells.
“Oh, you are really the ridiculous ones,” sneered the Garter Snake, “You run about on legs and burry your food in the ground as if it would ferment or become more valuable. How very primitive.” And they argued.
Meanwhile, the Autumn flowers began to wake from their slumber. The Crocosmia stood up and yawned, sticking her crimson flowerets out in an ostentatious manner.
“Ah, it awfully early,” she declared, loudly, “fore shame on whomever has woken me!”
“Oh, hush!” replied the Dahlia, “We must all wake up at this time.” The Dahlia was always compliant with natural laws.
“You care about these things all too much,” said the Echinops. “Perhaps you would gain some enlightenment if your heads were not so heavy.” The Echinops were quite hypocritical.
The yellow Hypericum giggled and sneezed. They had nothing to say for they were rather childish and not very witty.
“Humph!” purported the Kniphofia, bobbing their bulbous, orange plumes lethargically. “This Autumn society is so very vulgar. Quite intolerable. Indeed.”
A warm breeze blew in and the cries of the Magnolia leaves could be heard in the distance. They are almost as melodramatic as the Maple’s.
A family of Monarch butterflies fluttered about and landed on a patch of Achillea, who were thoroughly distressed and tremulous.
“Get off my flowers, immediately, you foolish creatures!” shouted the red and gold petals. “You shall quite destroy them!” and they fainted.
All the flowers became quite irritable after that for no one really liked the Achillea. The blue Scabious screamed “I am loosing my petals! I shall become quite bald!” and everyone laughed for they knew he was making jest at the Achillea.
The days became cold and Algor, with his fingers of ice lingered in the air, for Winter has arrived.
By Thomas Bennett-Stroud