Summer's last shout

Glowing in the brilliant autumn light

in an old argument learned by rote
defiantly, they fight the last fight.
Each is a blazing promissory note.

Without their death, there can be no life.

On fire, they pull back the canopy

to avoid the ruin of winter’s knife

spiral slowly to earth for you and me –

watch them sever their ties, take the plunge
like doomed aviators spinning earthbound.
Heaped into mounds of pavement grunge
their veined bodies are littering the ground.
Each brave martyr was willing to leap out.
Now, they are worm food, summer’s last shout.