October is here, once again,
barely transcending the threshold of autumn.
The maple is turning yellow to orange, to red,
soon to be bared by winter.

Ah winter, when blankets of bliss
cover spoon-fit bodies,
flickering sparks to flames. . .
until love of spring gardens
becomes the rapture of summer bloom.

And looking from outside-in,
beyond recognizable beauty,
the ruby of jewels glows bright,
pumping currents of rivers red,
deep into the wells of every extremity.
Our chest fills with laughter.

When apart, even so brief,
this season stays with you,
whether I am or not
and your voice with me,
through wind’s immutable breath.

©2009, Robert Savino

Robert J. Savino is a native Long Island poet and long standing board member of Island Poets. His poems have been published widely, in print, from The Long Island Quarterly to the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, as well as online in Poetry SuperHighway and Combat Magazine. Two of his poems appear in our other seasonal anthologies: “Idle Seesaw” is in the summer collection, and “Shortcut Through the Storm” is in the winter collection.

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