An Autumn Tale

The trees were talking in foreign tongues,

The leaves had plenty to say,

As he stood deep in the golden grove

Watching the treetops sway.

A gentle breeze had caught at their breath

To carry their whispered tales,

From tree to tree in the woodland depth

While the Autumn winds prevailed.

 

And golden leaves lay thick at their feet

A magic carpet of death,

Fluttering down with their lives complete

At the time of their final breath.

But she lay still on a mound of leaves

And smiled at the man she loved,

While he looked up like a man who grieves

At the sway of the trees above.

 

‘Why is the Autumn fall so sad,

Could it be that they feel like us?

Their Summer went, and at last they’re spent

And fall from the trees like dross.’

‘They’ve had their season of love,’ she sighed,

‘While ours is still ahead,’

‘But even we,’ he had then replied,

‘Face the day when we’ll both be dead.’

 

He joined her down on the bed of leaves

And she kissed his lips and his brow,

‘I never think about death,’ she said,

‘But only the here and now.’

‘Don’t you listen to what’s been said,

Those fluttering leaves in the air,

They’re asking, what’s it like to be dead

In a tone of utter despair.’

 

‘How could you know just what they say,

They’re swaying trees in the breeze,

There isn’t a dictionary, per se,

That a man can follow with ease.’

‘Haven’t you heard the tender moan

They make, when the wind soughs through,

Their sadness echoes in every tone

And it kills me, looking at you.’

 

‘You have to stop, you’re frightening me,’

She said as she pulled away,

‘I thought that we came to make sweet love

On a beautful Autumn day.’

‘But what will we think when our skin is dry,

And wrinkled, so many years,

Maybe the love that we feel today

Will lie in a horse-drawn hearse.’

 

He looked again and he watched her age

So brittle, an Autumn leaf,

Dry and brown, he was looking down

While she stared with eyes of grief.

‘You've taken away our springtime, Joe,

And reached for the Autumn rain,

I only know that I have to go

And I’ll not come here again!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[B]

Oh my dear God
David that is beyond amazing
Oh my

Romance
thrill
A little horror
And romance again

Sometimes when we feel for another
We just imagine them going away for any reason
And we just can not stomach that
The body refuses it

Like those two here
and how the leaf remains
a mark of her

Oh my god again
Waw

[Rinzin Samdup]

'The trees were talking in foreign tongues,
The leaves had plenty to say', These lines caught me on hold from my other work and to read and see, what it were talking about. it was cool start and the lines were so powerful. i like it alot. it was worth reading. thax. :)
Sam

[andrew mitchell]

David the depiction of Autumn blew me away as I have tried to write on Autumn this way but lacked the imagination you weaved in this graphic tale.

[TPK Stories]

Another great story DLP...

[Alan Corbett]

This piece has everything in terms of literature. I loved it. Confuser said it all.

[R Smith]

this is so different David, a tale of love that goes away, its a melancholy story and the sorrow runs throughout, unusual and really great writing as always :)

[Arline]

So heart-aching and yet beautiful! Wonderful job! I could see actually see the Autumn leaves fall along young lovers desire.

[ANTO]

I find all your works to have a philosophical bent David - theres a tale in them all that can teach the reader about life but this one is the most overtly philosophical. It reminds me of one of those 1950s Ingmar Bergman movies - it could be the prequel to The Seventh Seal.
Perhaps its not that Joe was in a hurry to reach Autumn but rather that he wasnt psychologically a Spring/Summer guy.
I feel sorry for the guy, he reminds me of me.

[Chirag Kumar]

I like the way everytime you unfold a story with sweet words. Amazing :D

[Barbz]

He believed that the moaning and whispering winds relieved the trees of their leaves, thus leaving them brown and withered, eventuating Death......his love Believed otherwise, living and loving in the here and now. The Autumns of our life, strangely enough, bring new beginnings which reveal themselves as we gracefully age. Yes, Joe, you've taken away her Springtime........Somber, but rather thought provoking, DLP.....Barbz