Autumnal Dance of Ayer

This one goes out to my baby girl Autumn.

Long may you live in such sepia blazed days.

I love you eternally.

Golden hues mingled with tangerine,

Leaves like rainbows in burnt umber,

A watercolor gone wild, vivid strokes

Brushed across the Berkshire peaks.

Your name was born there, my child –

In hopes you might radiate such splendor,

And paint with buttery warmth,

So your life might taste like apple pie.

We carried both our hopes and fears

In those autumn days of new marriage,

Bound with tragedy in haste –

Beauty short-lived, yet radiant as the season.

Still the leaves fall once more,

Two decades now gone by.

Autumn – both the season and my heart’s refrain –

I pray to Father for her sepia-saturated,

Autumnal dance of Ayer, layered with love in life.