Like jewels falling to earth, Autumn’s trees release their treasure. Our Photo Play participants captured the heart and soul of the season and dazzled us with their photographic skills.
S. Etole’s photo featured above offers a contemplative look at nature, while Simply Darlene offers a medley of sun, leaves, and a bit of sparkling snow:
Richard’s photo reminds us of the simple pleasure of tree-gazing from beneath the grand expanse.
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s prompt with poetry. Here is a poem from Marcy we enjoyed:
Hearing colors
Seeing sounds
Red dances with leaves,
Peeled back bark
Inspiring visual to see.
Spiritual color blue
Propels to the clear sky.
Yellow an Irish tin whistle,
Like wind blowing by.
Autumn is passion
Shine on those red heels.
Prance as she walks by,
But hurry still.
Winter is coming,
Snow Geese take to flight.
Let there be,
Peace tonight.
—by Marcy Terwilliger
POETRY PROMPT: Choose a photo from the post and respond with a poem. Leave your poem in the comment box. We’ll be reading. 
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Be sure to check out the highlights from Photo Prompt participants on the Photo Play Pinterest board! And keep clicking and/or playing with words.
Photos by S. Etole, Simply Darlene, and Richard Maxson. Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Heather Eure.
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Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!
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Maureen Doallas says
What lovely images.
Marcy Terwilliger says
Thank you Maureen, it was something different, not sure if others would understand the words or meaning but it just felt right as snow is here today and trees now bare of leaves.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Leave me here
Left alone
On stone cold
Rock
Don’t roll me over
My spine waits
For no one
Sedentary sediment
Gathers no moss
Waiting for the shift of shadows
Waiting for the rays to warm my solitary boney soul
as I pray tomorrow comes
if’n the creek don’t rise
And
Lord willing
Not in that order
Marcy says
Elizabeth Marshall,
Love your words, of course I enjoy all your poems. Waiting for the shift of shadows, for the rays to warm my boney soul. I’m so with you on those words. So true.
Richard Maxson says
Elizabeth, I like the repeating “oh” sounds in this. Also, loved the last stanza.
C. Shepherd says
A snippet of my poem inspired by the first image:
The dying leaves-
A colourful mirror of inside.
Slowly suffocating,
Broken heart.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Beautiful.
And an official welcome to this commumity. As a poetry barista and member of the team at The Mischief Cafe “hello” and “a very warm welcome”. So glad you came to play poetry with us.
C. Shepherd says
Thank you very much for the welcome! I have been reading the poetry prompts for some time now, and as I have always enjoyed trying to write a bit of poetry, I figured I’d might as well jump in every now and then. 🙂
Marcy says
Very nice C. Shepherd. I have suffered a broken heart, most painful experience in my entire life. My chest, my heart, actually hurt.
C. Shepherd says
Thank you Marcy and Donna for taking the time to read my little poem and sharing your thoughts about it! Very kind.
Donna says
Colorful mirror of inside.
What an image! beautiful words. 🙂
SimplyDarlene says
thank ye kindly for including mine in the collection.
still
flow
twirl. i like
the motion of the
three.
Amy Glamos says
Be here, now, in the quiet decline.
Sunset drops below the tree line;
leaves have danced their last goodbyes.
Sunset drops below the tree line;
hearken to shadow- prosaic space;
the warmth of wine has left her bed.
Hearken to shadow- prosaic space,
stretched far and thin beneath the frost;
she awaits the dawn to dance again.
Stretched far and thin beneath the frost,
her auburn crown suffused by white;
all at once, the lady has retired.
Her auburn crown suffused by white;
her absence looms in monochrome
across the fields; she sleeps alone.
Be here, now, in the quiet decline;
leaves have danced their last goodbyes.
The warmth of wine has left her bed;
she awaits the dawn to dance again.
All at once, the lady has retired
across the fields; she sleeps alone.
Richard Maxson says
Amy, this is a gorgeous Pantoum from the first stanza (which cannot help but draw the reader in) to the last. What an homage to Autumn!
The very first line is just killer; I keep reading it, “Be here now, in the quiet decline.” It is inviting, yet directs us to the proper mood for what we will witness.
Marcy says
This is just plain beautiful Amy, I love how it plays out in my mind. Yes, I hate to see her go, she wasn’t here very long this year.
Donna says
Beautiful form. Beautiful images. Beautiful words.
I love this!
Amy Glamos says
Thank you all for your kind comments. It’s actually a Tartoum- my first attempt at that particular form. Very similar to the Pantoum. So happy to hear you liked it!
Amy Glamos says
…and beautiful photos, by the way! Very inspiring.
Marcy Terwilliger says
Thank you so much for sharing my poem, you guys don’t know how much that really means to me.
Robbie Pruitt says
Great work Marcy! I am jumping up and down with you! So proud of your work and accomplishment. Congratulations!
Marcy says
Robbie you make me smile because I know every word you say is true. Thank you my friend.
Kelsey Royer says
So far removed
from the reality of Autumn–
gazing at jewel tones
on a dimly lit screen.
To engrossed, even
to watch from the window.
Richard Maxson says
Kelsey, this seems to match Darlene’s photo precisely.
Kelsey Royer says
Thank you!
Donna says
gazing at jewel tones
on a dimly lit screen.
Beautiful. I love the way you split that line.
Kelsey Royer says
thank you!
Richard Maxson says
Beautiful poem, Marcy!
Marcy says
Thank you so much Richard. We have red maples, a roll of birch trees, the bark really peels on those birch, it’s a lovely sight. For some reason after writing this poem it just felt right. The blue for the heavens. Trying to touch those vibrant colors.
Richard Maxson says
The photos this time were striking, but I have to let everyone know that the one I submitted was a stock photo. The leaves around Eureka Springs dropped early and out of the ordinary this year due to a very dry fall. I tried to find the actual photographer of the photo I submitted, but it was only marked stock photo. I had marked it as such in my Flickr account.
Richard Maxson says
Words are the shavings of a language. When we write poems we make a language form a thought or an event out of words. What we see in the woods depends on our imagination, even in the most real sense. I am always reminded of Wallace Stevens’s poem, “Reality is an Activity of the Most August Imagination.”
Sestina
We did not know who owned these woods,
but thought, what a perfect place for a house.
When October bared the branches
you pointed to a long, straight limb—
for a mantel over the hearth—
below which the fallen leaves rose like fire.
It was tempting to build a fire—
no one ever visited the woods,
except us, it seemed—in the hearth
we imagined, at the center of our house,
where we could warm our hands and limbs
after a day of following the creek branches.
Strange how real the mind branches,
and thoughts race on like wild fire,
leaping from the ground to limb.
This is how we cut down these woods—
each season, when visiting our house—
and hammered flooring ‘round the hearth.
Bold beams we cut to frame the hearth,
their eyes planed smooth from lesser branches—
too small for such a mighty house—
their trimmings used to feed the fire.
The rafters rose above the woods,
like quills instead of lumbered limbs—
notched with bird mouths, those limbs—
above all but the chimney for the hearth,
pied with snow that filled the woods,
as we walked the halls and rooms in branches,
always warmed by a dream of fire,
reaching every corner in our house.
December did not keep us from the house,
though winter found its way into our limbs,
leaves browned and failed to manifest a fire
for us, afraid to actualize the hearth,
but the house stood, though life branches
eventually from what we dream in woods.
So dies the fire, as seasons age the limbs.
The hearth is swept by winds around the house
and branches drop the seeds that feed the woods.
Marcy says
Richard, you live in a beautiful woods and in the mists of it all a home in God’s backyard. This poem reminds me of a walk in the woods and then seeing smoke rising from a chimney you stir closer. The woods surround the home to protect it as well as the animals. You ponder, do you go further in order to see it’s beauty or turn around and go home. Lovely Richard, I can see it all.
Robbie Pruitt says
Copper on Copper
The leaf rests
In stillness
In copper color
In silhouette
It drifted to stone
And lay were they met
© November 17, 2014, Robbie Pruitt
Marcy says
Robbie, simply eloquent, love it.
S. Etole says
Thank you for including my image.
Joy Lenton says
Elemental rust seeps
from stone to leaf
Tinged with copper hues
Nothing left to lose
All life stripped away
in their matched decay
One rooted strong
as iron, the other
waiting to be blown
as wisp to wind
An invitation dance
swansong to the end
Breaking the fellowship
of these fleeting friends
Elizabeth Marshall says
Joy, so womderful to see you here with your art. What a treat for all of us. Perhaps most especially, for me.
Karen Mae Zoccoli says
and the earth slowed
for a moment
reconsidering itself;
while soft rains came
loosening its grip
on yesterday;
leaning on reinvention
it gave away
its loveliness;
’til stillness found its place
and touched our hearts
with November
Laurie Kolp says
Dazzling the Audience
Autumn leaves, bits of snow–
a stage of ballerinas en pointe,
the spotlight golden sun.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Welcome to this community, Laurie. Tea with toast?
Christine Guzman says
Crawford Lake Musings
Hiking in
early December
gray, threatening skies,
trees bare of their leaves
nature in reflection
between two seasons.
The bounty of colors have left us
drawing attention to life’s bare bones
brilliant green moss carpeting rocks,
cedar trees, roots as fingers grasp at boulders
finding moisture in cracks and crevices,
clinging on to life,
flourishing against all odds.
Tree stumps
ghosts of their strong pasts
with ripples
demonstrate nature’s adapting
a wire fence
integrated into the tree’s growth.
Another tree fallen,
with roots scattered wide, yet flat
demonstrate that roots
need to grow deep
to hold on during life’s turbulences.
As nature pauses and adapts
in myriad ways,
so can I.