La Madeleine

Another, less purely humorous, but still not very serious poem. Since I'm being lazy about blogging of late (think: French thesis, long 20th Century paper, and the pesky little Am Lit paper I still haven't started), I'm just reposting things. Amateur, because this is effectively the first I've written.

The wind sprang up
at nine o'clock.
A sweeter breath
of autumn air
danced through my hair.

A honeyed scent
of falling leaves
and burning ash
breathed in here, now,
and I am back,

small, gazing up,
the summer breeze
quaking the heath
while honey bees
choreograph

spirals through gray
brush and lavender.
The peat moss bows
red caps—a grave
wind-bent salute—

until they brush
the brownish wisps
of younger hair,
then fall from thought.
Till scent breathed in

unearths some hoard;
till rustled hair
exhumes old air;
and kindled there,
autumnal leaves

are seen capped in
scarlet flame tips
tipping closer
as the wind-borne
wood breath dances.