Along the road where wind-blown branches twist,
I wandered lost beneath their fevered flame;
Autumn held wonders no stray soul could resist,
Each leaf lamented lives without a name.

The path unfurled beneath an arch of ashen light,
And twisted trees stood vigil, side by side;
Their skeletal fingers rasped in silent spite,
Where summer’s vanished hopes lay cold, denied.

I thought I heard a footfall soft behind,
A rustling like an echo from the past,
But when I turned, there came no form to find—
Just copper leaves descending, falling fast.

The road lay rutted, scarred by wheels long gone,
By carriages that ferried youth and grace,
And lovers certain spring would linger on—
Now dusk descends, and memory leaves no trace.

A distant cottage flickered into view,
Its panes ignited with the setting sun’s sallow flame—
The cold autumn wind bore neither blessing nor rebuke,
But some strange dread kept me from its frame.

For something in that golden light felt wrong,
As if the beauty were a gilded lie,
A siren’s final, melancholic song
That lures the weary traveler to die.

The leaves beneath my feet were rust and red,
Like dried blood scattered on a battlefield,
Where summer’s verdant armies lay fallen, bled
And autumn reaped what spring could never yield.

I stumbled on, though forward was the same
As backward—every trunk my spectral twin;
The narrowing boughs above me bent in muted blame,
As if the forest’s hands had clutched me tight within.

And then I knew—this road allowed no escape,
No lamplit door, no voice, no crust of bread,
Just endless gold in its unchanging shape,
A perfect cloister for the wandering dead.

The autumn does not turn—it circles round,
And those who walk its painted aisles too long
Become the whispers, rustling on the ground,
Become the leaves that sang their final song.

For we who tread this haunted, winding road
Are but the leaves—bright-hued turned brown, then trod beneath,
Forgotten fragments of the ode
That autumn scatters from its funeral wreath.