POETRY • 47
BY KELLY SANDEL The falling leaves of Autumn’s days, The orange and gold and flaming red, Recall to mind the perished days Of long ago, ’fore old were dead. But most distinctly in the fall Are when the echoes come again. Around the crackling fire we’d sit, For swiftly came the twilight then. So plainly can I hear it now, The timeless tunes so often played By Father on his fiddle there Beside the fire in evening shade. The fiddle laughed and danced with us When Father played the jig and reel, And then the shadows of the dark Would so much more inviting feel. Sometimes there’d be a ballad long; We children listened quite enthralled, Like we were with that chieftain’s host When enemy vict’ry was forestalled. And other times there’d be a tune That with the wind would sob and wail And send a shiver up the spine; A feeling that would aft prevail. Those cheerful nights are only memories, The fiddle sings no more on eves; But those long gone arise again So clear—when fall the Autumn leaves.
