A Ballad Of Betrayal
Her twirling leaves on windows tapped,
inviting me outside.
Unsettled, fall was on the run,
the wayward wind, her ride.
I kicked through autumn’s dying leaves
though blindly unaware —
too awed by her resplendency
to sense I should beware.
‘Neath murmuring of restless trees,
I hadn’t understood
those crackling warnings underfoot
nor creaking of the wood.
In shadowed veil a darkness lurked,
its chill was in the air.
An evil huddled unobserved —
’twas winter hiding there.
From ‘neath the pumpkin’s dying vine,
between my feet it creeped.
A ghostly, wicked wind arose
and up my back it leaped.
Then mad as eyes of staked scarecrows,
the storm unleashed my fears.
Ol’ winter snaked around my neck
and hissed, “The end is near!”
The sky turned black and thunder cracked.
Trees writhed and heaved a breath.
The wind, possessed like howling ghosts,
foretold of looming death.
The aspens, with their startled leaves,
were quivering with fright.
They bent and rose as skeletons
with wounded souls in flight.
And then I saw them up ahead,
my love with my best friend.
They kissed and strolled off hand in hand.
I knew it was the end.
Emotions stripped, I stood there bare —
a trembling skeleton.
Amid the storm I realized
that winter had begun.
That fateful autumn day, I watched
two scarecrows walk away,
and by their sides there flew the ghosts
of fall — and love — betrayed.
A version of this was first published in Quarterday Review 2016, Samhain edition.
