Anyone in my social circle may suspect that October is my favourite month! Last year I collated some beautiful poems, paintings and literature in the post Ode to Autumn.

Camille Pissarro

I hope my own words can cast a ray of light on your Sunday and paint some worthy burnished pictures in your mind…(alongside some Impressionist beauties)!

Autumn Foliage

You don’t possess the scorching heat of Summer;

Yet your warm palette brightens my soul.

Flaming tones of yellow, orange, ochre and red,

Have committed green to verdant memory.

Febrile fronds merge and sway in unison,

A kaleidoscope of colour ablaze on my retina,

Nature’s last jump for joy, before Winter comes.

Camille Pissarro

I see tinted, vivid leaves clinging defiantly,

Radiating their seasonal light like a supernova,

An explosion of ephemeral, golden bloom,

Before they are ripped from branch and bough.

To be tossed and discarded,

On the breath of exuberant winds.

Swirling, withering petals of vibrant tincture;

James Tissot

Eventually laid to rest…

Creating a carpet of luminous pigmentation,

Dry and crisp under boisterous boots,

A final burst of spirited and spicy intensity.

The burnt hues of Autumn will soon be gone,

Leaving my eyes bereft of beauty.

Wind whistling long…

Pierre Auguste Renoir

Through the bleak, bare trees of winter.

Empty conker skins and mulchy leaves break down

Their recycled atoms dormant until spring,

Waiting to power tentative daffodil buds.

Death and decay, the cold season brings,

For renewal means to die and to be reborn;

…Even more magnificent than ever.

By Virginia Burges

Camille Pissarro