The Danube River, Hungary, October 2009Beauty Before Death
Cheryl L. Daytec
Trees dance with colors like discotheque lights
through mists of white descending from the heavens
The light about to travel to another world hesitates,
begs for more time to kiss the vivid autumn shades
like a thirsty traveler who cannot drink enough from
the spring of sweet water in the heart of the desert
But it must go and its farewell walk alters the landscape
Into another dazzling form that holds my gaze
There is an orange fire in the sky, that seems to herald
A gaiety of every form blessed with magnificence
But tomorrow, the leaves cleaving to the proud twigs
Will tumble stupefied on expectant dull earth
Multihued petals will drop down on a pile of decay
In every corner frozen branches and twigs will cling
To the trunks like the near-dead rejecting the grave
Trees will stand like ghosts too unhappy to haunt
For now let me stay mesmerized by the sight before me
With Mont Le Blanc ahead and Lake Geneva behind
Let me forget that this soul-entrancing beauty
Is a flamboyant prelude to the colors’ sad demise.
/october2007,switzerland
