“The Quiet Advancement of Fall” – Celebrating A New Season in Poetry
From the middle of a field in England to the mountainous forests of southern Appalachia to the great American cities of Philadelphia and Minneapolis—the Dandelion Scribes present a selection of poems in celebration of the season of autumn. Though we are separated by thousands of miles of land and ocean, living unique lives in different states and countries, we are all connected by the cycles of nature, the changing seasons, the movement of transition, and the deep need to witness our world through the practice of writing poetry. The Quiet Advancement of Fall, as Christian Ward says, is upon us, and we must be ready to treat nature as our teacher as we examine life, in flux.
Five poems by Kait Quinn punctuate our autumnal timeline: from Summer’s End in August, to the Sonnet for September, to the meeting of death & beauty in October, to the November that “will be over in an eye’s blink,” bringing us through to season’s end. In between are moments of quiet and solitude, pause and observation, grief and reflection, anticipation and appreciation, play and praise.
Whether autumn finds you eagerly embracing her splendor, mourning a profound loss, or singing like a fool, you are sure to find a poem here that will resonate as we enter this new season, together.
Featuring the following poets:
Kait Quinn, @kaitquinnpoetry
Christian Ward, @fighting_cancer_with_poetry
Lucy Coats, @lucywriter
Cheyanne Leonardo, @dithyrambler
Mellisa Pascale, @mellisapascale
Frances Denise, @francesdenisepoetry
Cari Lynne King, @inkstainedmemoirs
Olivia Gilreath, @your_bsflivvv
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
SUMMER'S END
Septembral waves of nostalgia, thick
as caramel sepia stretched over dusk,
wash over me:
swirl of leaves on cobblestone,
apples rounding into season,
silence gnawed to the bone by indie
rock and rolled-down windows
on a Texas highway, cedar-stitched
oversized sweaters, Earl grey and dust
of used book stores, when I still drank
pumpkin spice lattes and wrote lyric-birthed
poems with blue-lined paper and dull lead.
A bite of sixty-degree wind returns
like a sparrow to mark summer's end.
As much as I'll miss the heady scent
of August, bare feet in cold creeks,
endless green in every direction,
the shock of Lake Nokomis
when it's arrid and ninety out,
first glimpse of sun when winter
drags on into spring,
I am awash in cleansing when the trees
burn in autumn. I am never sad
to see summer go. I have even learned
to embrace walls of snow and below
zero winters because otherwise,
I never would have known that I could burst
into flame and let go, rebuild my bones
from ash, dilate cracks in iced-caged irises.
I fall inward—rework, restitch, rearrange
—before I emerge into spring, pink
and placental, unfurled wings flapping
wildly beneath ethereal glow of sunlit
evenings laced with honeysuckle,
cottonwood, rolling hum of cicada screams
in sticky, honey-sweet summer heat.
I have learned that life is a cycling;
summer's end nothing more than return
or rise into something new.
–Kait Quinn
⚘
THE QUIET ADVANCEMENT OF FALL
Fall stalks from the garden wall:
Nimble like a fox cub, it leaps down
to poke and prod chicken corpses
of neighbouring patios. Taps a paw
at wind chimes harmonising
with an incoming gust. Fall
is tough and won't be shooed
or harried away. It ripens blackberries
with a single look, makes obsidian
teeth of the elderberries abseiling
into the communal gardens, waltzes
with invisible partners of fungi,
and listens to the moss purring
with its touch. Even the lichen – stoic
and rooted – wears its shape
while I struggle to fit inside the right box.
–Christian Ward
⚘
SONNET FOR SEPTEMBER
Gardens break their peacock promise. Gamboge cracks
through gingko green like lemon cichlids break
free from seaweed chains. September, like the fox's
ripe carcass, reminds me the romance of crawling
into another body's ribcaged forest, antique
with decay, palmy with crimson. I love the way
September bleeds, heaves her sage-stained
witch breath against second summer's heels.
Long live the hearth burn of witchcraft, ghost
as villain, looking sideways at the Corn Moon,
Child Moon, Moon of Brown Leaves held captive
by a campfire of maple mid ochre kiss.
I, like the wandering coyote, wake feral and famished
for the harvest of August's blackberry hemorrhage.
–Kait Quinn
⚘
FALLEN FRUITS
We thought it was autumn
apples swelling his belly round,
rigid with trapped air. He loved
all fruit, strawberries most.
How odd for a dog with
steel-trap badger jaws
to steal those sweet red
summer jewels from their green
leaf bed with such sly delicacy.
He killed a snake once,
before we planted the trees.
Shook it to hissing death.
Perhaps its spirit remained,
malignant with canker among
the cooker branches. Waiting.
The sheep field was his own
canine entertainment system.
Watching, always watching
the subtle move and sway of
the flock from the orchard edge,
and barking, always barking,
his sarcastic commentaries the
incessant sub-context to all our lives.
‘Wish that dog would shut up’ we said.
And now he has.
His garden fiefdom is silent; dying
with just the random pitter-pat
of falling conkers on his grave
to mark the season’s passing.
–Lucy Coats
⚘
DEATH IS THE HARVEST YOU'VE BEEN SOWING FOR
September ripens citrus-
infused. Crème brûlée
crackable ghosts sing
emeralds Sahara
gold. Autumn
is a wider lens
than April's rose. How sweat-
sallowed clothes doused
in October sun
clink in jewel
and sepia tone
against pupil.
How a single
beam slanted through
crimson bough
turns earthen morgue
to Phoenix nest.
How every dead
end is a ripped seam
in the veil,
if your heart is a willing
planchette, your
tongue knows just
who to ask.
–Kait Quinn
⚘
AUTUMN
i can’t run from autumn
though i worship firefly stars
as they turn trees
into songs of summer sky
buds into a body
breaking away from the night
i will have to drink death like water
walk the cold river
honor the rhythm
and listen
as the light wanes
ancient
and sacred
i know forever is a circle
and transition anoints arrival
–Cheyanne Leonardo
⚘
glass, kissed by moonlight,
crooned by crickets, cold to touch
as the sun rises,
clutches celestial warmth
and gives haze, not honesty.
–Mellisa Pascale
⚘
THE FALLING
happiness seems a distant dream
until a sunbeam meets yellow leaves
and the world awakens to the memory
of its own magic.
that age-old alchemy –
transforming the ordinary
into its glorious, gilded truth:
all that gold was there all along,
simply hidden from view.
when those green gates give way,
finally flooding the treetops
with a torrent of incandescent color,
the autumn air breathes, exhales –
then heaves. and every little leaf,
jostled for a moment in jewel-toned joy,
waves goodbye.
revels in its own radiance.
and falls – soft
as a lullaby.
restfully. peacefully.
without pain or passion or protest.
each one returns to the same soil
from which its own mother
had once burst forth –
perhaps the leaves know they’re not alone
because the falling feels like coming home.
–Cheyanne Leonardo
⚘
You always have this way of stirring things within me
Think of a swirling rush of emotions
Like a gust of wind animating a pile of fallen maple leaves
It seems so sudden at first, yet
It all settles so gently,
At varying speeds
Because there’s a breeze
Or two, or three,
That catches the descent for a moment
Making the whole scene seem like it’s in slow motion
The dappled sunlight coloring the whole experience in surreality
–Frances Denise
⚘
IT COMES NATURALLY
When I think of you
I think of Fall
and that beautiful day
surrounded in red, purple, orange
And love
As the trees shed their color
their roots are strengthened
to withstand the battle
of a frigid winter ahead
Such has been our love
We have lost our beauty
We have faced the harshest winters
chilled to the bone
But we are rooted in love
and built to withstand
When I think of you
I think of Fall
–Cari Lynne King
⚘
EMBRACE OF AUTUMN’S SPLENDOR
Golden leaves drift softly down,
In a dance with autumn's breeze.
Whispers of the season's crown,
Rustling through the ancient trees.
Crisp air fills the morning light,
Pumpkin patches, harvest's call.
Nature's canvas, pure delight,
In the gentle arms of fall.
Warm hues paint the twilight sky,
As the days grow short and sweet.
Underneath the amber dye,
Fall's embrace is calm and neat.
–Olivia Gilreath
⚘
WE'RE IN IT NOW
We meet October in her caramel
middle. The trees—proud, resolute
exhibitionists—strip naked, while we
bag our limbs in oversized sweatshirts.
The chimneys sweep hearth fire like old
black magic into ancestral air, crisp enough
to bite down on. The kitchen witches trade
chai aromas through open windows,
rare waft of cauldron sage. What a pot
of gold! What another glorious clementine
dawn!—leaves curt as pear syrup, copper sun
bright like the sweet tang of sliced oranges.
–Kait Quinn
⚘
PLAY
this october, round the block
we’ve seen monarchs on our walks
like rumors fly – though without wings;
the fool arrives and starts to sing
a song of hope, a jester’s joke.
pass the pipe, i need a toke
to take my tired mind away
from callous clowns who claim to pray
then revel in another’s ache.
(they call it fun, i call it fake!)
we see through your ruthless ruse:
you made two sides, then made us choose!
this kind of play won’t win the game.
a kinder king would not take aim
at girls who follow after dreams
far beyond your sad regime
and all your manic, mad demands –
we queens will heed our own commands.
–Cheyanne Leonardo
⚘
DON'T SHOW ME AUTUMN YET
Don't show me autumn yet.
November will be over in an eye's
blink, and I am not ready
for her bright dead symphony's
marbled coda. Not even the butchered
pumpkins have begun to rot; they give
like a feast to the squirrels. Already
I feel the marigolds vibrate,
readying to wilt, and I can't stand it—
the numbing sameness of all
those bare branches that blaze now
in gamboge and carmine before
disappearing into winter's yawning gulf.
O, autumn, my heart beats only
inside your pomegranate arms!
You have spoiled me with your jewels.
Would it be better if you never were?
To have never known your amber kiss,
carnelian dawns, feuille-morte dusks?
Drag the image of your bones draped
in lurid silks from my pupil.
If there is no start, there is no end.
If October never realizes into foreground,
the vermillion can never burn
off my rearview mirror.
–Kait Quinn
The Scribes would like to extend a special shoutout to poets Christian Ward and Lucy Coats, whose submissions have officially made the Dandelion Scribes an international poetry publication. Their words arrived in this little space all the way from the UK! Thank you both for sharing your words with us. We are deeply grateful to feature your voices in our poetic menagerie!
⚘ Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with recent work in Dust, Free the Verse, Loch Raven Review, Cider Press Review and elsewhere. He won the first 2024 London Independent Story Prize for poetry and the 2024 Maria Edgeworth Festival Poetry Competition.
⚘ Lucy Coats is a writer and poet. In 2022 she won the Latin Programme Poetry Prize, and has been published in several literary journals. Lucy is also a mythographer, and has published over 40 titles for children and young adults. She lives in the middle of a field in England, surrounded by wildlife.
SEPTEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE SCRIBES
“Fallen Fruits” by Lucy Coats pays homage to an energetic dog with steel-trap badger jaws. Another poem by Lucy will be featured in our next post here on the site – all about dogs! We have decided to extend our dog-poem deadline a few more days, through this Sunday, September 15. Head on over to our submissions page and send us a poem about your favorite canine for a chance to be featured.
One of our frequent contributors, Laura A. Clift, will be releasing a brand new collection of short stories on September 18! Be sure to follow her on Instagram @l.a.clift for more information about the book and where to purchase!
Dandelion Scribes editor Cheyanne Leonardo will be performing poetry as a featured artist in an upcoming show in Historic Rugby, TN. Join us Saturday, September 21, 7pm at the Rebecca Johnson Theatre for The Bloom Stage, hosted by Kara Kemp & Poetry in the Boro. Diptychs, Doubletakes, and Doppelgangers: The Power of Two in Our Stories will feature performances by storytellers, poets, musicians, and more, including a musical performance by Stephen Phillips in the open-mic portion of the show! The event is FREE, with donations for Historic Rugby collected at the door.
Dandelion Scribes editor Amber Sparks is set to publish and release her debut poetry collection, Supernova Soliloquies: From the Darkest Depths to Blinding Brilliance, on September 23! Join us for our release party from 6-8pm at the McCreary County Public Library in Whitley City for a book sale & signing, poetry reading, and publication celebration. You don’t want to miss your chance to meet & greet this dazzling local author!
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Publication Notes
“autumn” by Cheyanne Leonardo, originally published in her collection, angel falls, 5/14/22.
“the falling” by Cheyanne Leonardo, originally published in her collection, death deceived, 2/3/23.
“It Comes Naturally” by Cari Lynne King, originally published in her collection, Ink-Stained Memoirs, 7/30/24.
With endless love & gratitude,
