I like this a good deal, Richard. I’m sure I need much more time to soak this in as it was just posted, but I’ll give you some of my initial thoughts anyway. Overall, I think it’s about a child’s trauma over the drowning of another child, which is why it is still autumn. The drowning isn’t just about a child actually drowning, but the feelings of the other child remembering it. A lot of “n” sounds leading up to “drown” as well, which I quite like, intentional or not.
I’m hesitant to nit this because, again, the poem was just posted, but I’m not sure about the semicolons. I hate them generally, so there’s that (they should all be sent to punctuation hell as far as I’m concerned—though probably in my next poem I’ll be forced to use one…) But I’m especially not sure of them here.
“songless autumn,” “grey leaf-light,” and “cracked like a scab” are all wonderful. “cracked like a scab” is especially nice because they can be annoyingly painful, they are sores that are supposedly healing but have reopened, and they are, of course, common for children from playing hard (like in a park). I like how the title skips along… A first quick take, so I’m sorry if I completely missed the boat. Good stuff.
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