A Crown of Autumn Leaves

By Annie Finch b. 1956 Annie Finch

For Mabon (fall equinox), Sept. 21

Our voices press

from us

and twine

around the year's

fermenting wine

Yellow fall roars

Over the ground.

Loud, in the leafy sun that pours

Liquid through doors,

Yellow, the leaves twist down

as the winding

of the vine

pulls our curling

voices—

Glowing in wind and change,

The orange leaf tells

How one more season will alter and range,

Working the strange

Colors of clamor and bells

In the winding

of the vine

our voices press out

from us

to twine

When autumn gathers, the tree

That the leaves sang

Reddens dark slowly, then, suddenly free,

Turns like a key,

Opening air where they hang

and the winding

of the vine

makes our voices

turn and wind

with the year’s

fermented wine

One of the hanging leaves,

Deeply maroon,

Tightens its final hold, receives,

Finally weaves

Through, and is covered soon

in the winding

of the vine—

Holding past summer's hold,

Open and strong,

One of the leaves in the crown is gold,

Set in the cold

Where the old seasons belong.

Here is my crown

Of winding vine,

Of leaves that dropped,

That fingers twined,

another crown

to yield and shine

with a year’s

fermented wine.

Biography

Annie Finch is the author or editor of fifteen books of poetry, translation, and criticism, including the trilogy of poetry collections Eve (1997), Calendars (2003), and Spells, and the long poems The Encyclopedia of Scotland (2002) and Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams (2009). Calendars was shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year Award, and Eve reissued in the Carnegie Mellon Classic . . .

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