Autumnal Grief
By Gloria R. Buckley -
There is something enticing about the aromatic swirling scents of fall. Even in my grief, I still capture a dew kissed leaf as it falls from the grace of an emboldened maple branch only to be saved by my outstretched palm. I was afraid of fall this year, as if my mother’s death would have somehow compounded a melancholic haze over another summer demise. Yet, I am still in grateful comfort with the cooling haze of morning dew, the smell of firewood burning in the distance, the crave of pumpkin spice in all its ambrosial glory. I am still grateful to be alive as the leaves seek their burial one by one in the embrace of the wet welcoming earth.
I have loved the celebration of death in fall’s majestic hues of burgundy and golden tangerine grains etched like muted lollipops atop a glowing mountainside. There is a promise of eternal rejuvenation I have witnessed in quiet awe. In the dying leaves drenched and softened by the earth’s gentle clutch-I have inhaled a potent promise of peace.
Gloria R. Buckley has been published by The Write Launch,Formal People Journal,Ephemeral Elegies (twice),Me First Magazine, Rue Scribe, The Star Dust Review (twice), Defiant Scribe, Academy of Heart and Mind, Chaleur Magazine, Prometheus Dreaming, Red Hyacinth Journal, Sensations Magazine, Alcoholism Magazine, Chimera Magazine, Journal of English Language and Literature, Hermann Hesse Page Journal, Virginia Woolf Blog, Focus Magazine, Chimera Magazine and many other journals of poetry and prose. She was born a writer and is a lawyer for over 30 years, holds a JD, BA & MA with Distinction in English Literature.