Autumn in Suburbia (Poem)

It's Saturday morning in the suburbs, and late autumn has sidled in
all dove grey skies and chilly exhales
sugar frost on the grass

the leaves still falling, but the gold dulling now
the citrus trees have given their last fruit, and are quiescient, drawn inside themselves
from the once-were-flowers, seeds drip down
darkening into the damp silty earth

wodsmoke drifts out from chimneys down the street, curling away to the horizon in fat scribbled interrobangs
saying the year is turning from the light
why why why

and from the house next door, the smell of frying bacon
while the people behind are making some kind of stew, rich with the tang of wine and meat
the kids from the corner are riding their bikes up and down, and calling out something about dragons
while the people next door trudge off with their twin cavoodles, one dragging them along, one needing to be dragged

on the nature strip, at least four kinds of mushrooms
growing in fairy rings and ley lines
and I remember the autumn the man from down the street harvested them,
big bursting bucket-loads
all cheerful and brisk
and said: my wife cooks 'em for me, bewtiful
but she won't eat them herself though
and then we didn't see him again until the spring, and all winter we wondered

in the distance, the freight train sounds its mournful howl
and the ravens on the power lines tip their heads and call out
hoarse and cracked as a mouthful of torn tin

the ovals and playing fields up at the park overrun with teenagers in shorts kicking balls
and bystanders wrapped in puffers and long sportsball-team scarves,
watching, shuffling on booted feet, sipping coffee from paper cups

and it rained yesterday and it will rain again today
and someone from down the court is talking about a pumpkin festival
or perhaps just pumpkin pie, it's hard to tell 

the spotted turtle-doves on the wall murmurring to each other
as the cool insinuating wind catches the softness of their neck feathers
the cat attaching like a limpet to anyone who sits for longer than three breaths
her instinct for heat-sharing and comfort unerring 

autumn is here, now.

the days are shortening and nights growing colder
every icy dawn pointing towards the winter,
the winter that is coming as surely as the world turns and turns again 

and we are for the dark, oh yes
we are for the dark.