things move around

Geese migrating in a swish of russet
     Break up in the distance like a wrack of smoke,
Announce the turn of seasons, videlicet:
     Brush with frosty breath the ripened cheek,
And etch expectancy into the air.
     Lingering mists whose chilly fingertips
          Quicken drowsy blood and prick the skin
Beshroud the inlet: dolent container ships
     Low out diapasons, shiver and respire.
     Breezes begin to winnow and bestir
          The forest canopy and floor; the rains begin.

To hear the jitter and skirr of squirrels,
     Inhale the acrid smell of leaf-mould,
Watch leaves pile up in brittle fascicles,
     And at an intersection, the exhaust enfold
An iron fire-hydrant like a sightless wraith;
     And then to feel the sun in a last spate
          Undo all omens in a honeyed gust
Of gold and burgundy, a flourish of faith;
     To see the horse-chestnut spill its fruit
     Amid the sidewalk-dreck, the mossed root
          Splitting the asphalt at your behest,

Autumn, is to know you, in your big-buttoned coat,
     Steaming and champing as you detrain -
Gasp of opening doors, hiss of heat -
     Buying coffee, unpeeling a tangerine,
Giving to the croak of old men in the park
     A rubric of oblique regretfulness,
          To the rush of soft shoes on paving slabs
The clement breathiness of a chinook,
     To the cough of cars the rough finesse
     With which you stiffen and bedew the grass,
          Caress cold railings with dew-decked webs.