秋老虎 (A Tiger in Autumn) by Joseph Harker

This holy electricity was in the air today, rummaged between
the cars flashing down Sixth Avenue and the long fingers of buildings
jutting up from the earth. Even in the city’s encrusted heart,
autumn is the kaleidoscope season. The whole world rolled over,

held up to the sun to let all its pieces jangle and clatter
in riots of color: never a sky that deserved the adjective blue,
market stalls lined with apples and pumpkins like some
secret painter set off a vegetable grenade. Everything deciding

to throw one last party. No paleness to it like with the afterbirth
of spring, no drowning haze like the maturity of summer.
Now is when we feel the tumbling of days, see the sun move
ever more frantically up the staircase heavens, feel ourselves

tumbling round our wheel of fortune. The year knows its time is
almost up. At the start the peeking of green and purple is a relief,
but here (in the empty spaces, in the parks and medians and
rooftop verandas) the whole bodies of trees, stones, air,

they allow themselves to burn out with glory. Leaves that turn
have already begun to die: and before they crumble, they
celebrate, stand our hair on end with their beauty, coming down
on our heads, we, who learn so much, who learn so little.

Joseph Harker, USA

Tanagers by Zachary Fishel

They call them scarlet but from the
sounds of their voice
it’s fire,
burning leaves crackling in
the fresh buds.
The glowing orange of morning light
as you pull covers up with the sunrise,
after coffee it’s fine though.
That’s how they sing.

The birds,
now hard to find anywhere
still flit around up here
in the mountains of oak trees.
They make you glimpse,
often,
to see if the tree’s are ablaze
or if nature has combusted like man
has
on itself time and again.
Fall approaches already even as the new buds shoot
out
looking like traffic lights with the tanagers
calling for love,
to last a season and go away.
On itself time and again.


Zachary Fishel

Wild Geese by Andrew Pei

They look toward the skyline ahead of them;
They hover over big places and small.
They keep mountains and rivers under feet;
They brush cheeks with the floating clouds.
They pay no attention to the envious eyes watching from below;
They pay no attention to the admiration soaring up to the sky.
Flying toward their destination is the only focus,
A destination they have reached year after year.
Leaving the familiar behind is painless for them,
Into the opening arms of the sky they go as the season calls.
When they return in accordance with the schedule,
They will find the same nests they built before.
Come and go makes a simple cycle.
That’s their life; they carry on with it.

Andrew Pei 

Some Errant Clouds by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue

Some errant clouds scud along the sky,

While their shadows glide along the topography

over hills, malls, rivers, ghettos, burbs.

My blinking eyes, catch this scene.

But between my ears, I wonder . . .

why is this so special?

Same damn clouds as 10, 20, 30, or a millennium ago.

White cumulus with just a streak of blue

racing, patches of azure between them.

So why am I staring, my feet stuck, my neck craning

up at this moveable, ever malleable sky?

 Ken Wheatcroft-Pardu, Texas, USA