AUTUMN

Hot summer days have passed and gone,

It's golden autumn now.

A warm sun shines in clear blue skies,

Ripe fruit hangs from the bough.

The streams run low in grassy banks,

Soft autumn breezes sigh.

It almost seams they're telling us

Cold winter time is nigh.

The pumkins lie out in the field,

Wild geese fly overhead,

The goldenrods are blooming now,

The sumac trees are red.

The ripening grain stands in the fields,

It's harvest time again,

It's time to pick the golden corn

And store it in the bin.

A chain saw whines out in the woods,

A farmer fells some trees.

He's making wood to stow away

For the coming winter freeze.

And while he saws his mind will stray

To the day the work is done

He'll hunt out through the fields and trees

With his favorite dog and gun.

John L. Gwaltney

THE MALLARD

Across a brassy Autumn sky,

In a perfect wedge and flying high.

A flock of mallards wing their way

To Southern feeding grounds to stay.

Wild instinct warns the ducks each fall

To move before the icy squall.

On swishing wings they move each day

And rest in marchlands on the way.

Each day they fly out to the fields

And feed there on the wasted yields.

At evening, while there still is light,

They'll hunt a watered place for night.

Like any traveler on a trek

The mallard must protection seek.

They must avoid the beast of prey

And watch for hunters on the way

They'll fly across the hunter's blind.

And some of them are left behind;

Or fly low to the hunter's call,

And some of them are sure to fall.

When circling in they must be sure

Of decoy tied out for a lure.

A wooden image of their kind,

They're near a hunter in a blind.

And so 'twill be from day to day,

As the feathered pilgrim makes his way.

The swifter wing and sharper eye

Are the mallards that will go on by.

John L. Gwaltney