The Rust of Autumn

Leaves brittle as burnt sugar, snap under the deliberate weight of a morning that forgot to warm. The frost etches silver geometry across the sleeping veins of oak.

A crow shifts its weight on a stripped branch, a dark punctuation against the gray wash of a sky withholding snow. Silence is a heavy, rusted bell, hanging low in the damp valley.

We breathe out ghosts of vapor, watching them dissipate into nothing. The season turns upon a slow hinge, grinding summer’s green memory into a fine, copper dust.