Still Life in Essex County

A bitter breeze atop a Summer corn field:
Autumn’s first breaths. 
Cloud-born kingdoms drift and surge, 
absorbing blue morsels in effortless paint-splattered plumes. 

Leafless oaks stretch wiry fingers 
up, up, up 
into the billowing canvas, 
foreshadowing Winter,
overshadowing splinters of pine and birch copycats 
gazing 
up, up, up 
to their lean futures. 

No promise of Spring 
hails from crusty maple keys nor wilted gardenside chrysanthemums--
no promise, 
that is, 
barring intuitive confidence in the constancy of change:
the flow of the sand,
the turn of the screw, 
the shedding of old, 
all-in for the new. 

Seasons change.
I remain.

And the corn grows taller.