Green*
Fleshy limbs fingerpaint the sky
That wondrous joy of life bedecked in emerald sheaves
Parasols twirling, swirling overhead
Shade from a beaming sun
Meal for all things living
Red
Cavorting flame upon the canopy
Fiery spriggan leaping upon chilled winds
Pamphlets scattered over cobbles
Story of the forest
Within these leaves
Orange
Ember glow at sunset
Drawing down of growing season
Harvest bounty: blessed apples, squash, and beans
Citrine post-it clings to heel
Worm-worn one-sheet from the bower
Yellow
Golden halo reflecting in the lake
Final blush of high summer sun low upon the sky
Damp, rainy days along muddy paths
Aging newsprint pages gust
Announcement of winter snow
Brown
Battered by rain, knocked from lofty heights
Infusion of tannin, little tea puddles
Moldering and curled with age
Crumpled, torn kraft paper wrappers
Littering our sidewalks in autumn
Black*
Sepulcher of bacterial dance
Nodules of decay in snow piled slush, boot treads
Windblown and waterborne to sewer grates
Mingled there with detritus
The leavings of the day
Currently based in Ohio (USA), William T. Blackburn struggles still to find his car keys. He holds a BA in English:Writing/Teaching and Music Composition from Westminster College. His work appears in SCRAWL: 94, Emerald Press, Route 7 Review: 6 & 7, Edify Fiction: Teen, Thirty West-Weekly Degree 6/19, The Blue Mountain Review 16, fws:journal of literature & art: 2 & 3, Paragon Press: Tales of Reverie, The Anti-Languorous Project: Soundbite 4, AbstractMagazineTV-Contemporary Expressions, Soliloquies Anthology: 24.1, and Poet’s Choice: Birth, Please See Me, The Rainbow Poems(UK), AIPF, TAEM: Abstract Elephant. His work has been selected by Castabout Anthology, and Ricochet Review: 8. He contributed to Adirondack Center for Writing: PoemVillage-2019 and 2020 and Response II, as well as Riza Press/Pen and & Pendulum: Giving.
Image by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Dülmen, Börnste, Weide — 2015 — 9921” / CC BY-SA 4.0