Autumn Eruption
Battle Mountain, Home Ranch
Carbon County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon S. O'Toole
Autumn Eruption
Molten lava leaves spill searing lustrous fire
Down rough volcanic flanks charred by eruptions
From time before time, when earth overpoured her core,
Grew rock into mountains, these cliffs and canyons.
Did tectonic bursts glow more brightly than these leaves?
Aspens gleam golden, so shimmering with light as to
Scar the eye. To look too long is to stare at the sun.
Night falls and wind howls from northern ice fields.
Damp rotting leaves waft mold and mortality,
Mixed with the decay of eons and erosion,
Leaves, now mildewed, unfurled and drank and changed
Into gilded rivers flooding down mountain flanks.
Night and wind sweep all away with noise and force,
Baring rock slides, no glowing river of fire.
Morning finds a landscape brown and settling.
Magma glow dampered into sodden mat,
Fool’s gold carpeting the forest floor,
Spread on bones of ancient lava flows,
On bits and spines of last year's fallen leaves,
Soil, spun from autumn’s leavings, like straw
Into gold. Rumpelstiltskin’s sleight-of-hand.
