I’m in Ohio right now at Lit Youngstown’s Annual Fall Literary Festival, but wanted to share a poem that hasn’t been seen for a while. This post was originally pubished exactly 9 years ago, the first week of Oct. 2012 – barely two months after I’d first created this blog! The poem, however, is older than that. With the leaves turning and the air becoming cooler, I thought today might be the perfect opportunity to bring this back for all to see. Hope you like it!
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Y’know…now that I think about it…
I should’ve come up with a title for this poem.
For some reason, I just never got around to it. I wish I could find the original, which had the date of completion on it (I’m sure it’s packed away somewhere around here) but I’d guess that I wrote this around 2000.
We were living in Highgate, Vermont, at the time and I was home on the front porch, looking at the field across the road and the line of multi-colored trees that stretched behind it. I think it was late September, but it must have been a cool, early fall because I recall the trees had already lost a significant amount of leaves, which spurred me to write this.
It’s never been published but is still one of my favourites; I’ve always loved Elizabethan sonnets, so there are elements of an older, more traditional style, but I hope you like it. For more poetry, please visit Irene Latham at Live Your Poem for today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup!

Sonnet 10
The dark green trees, so tender yestermonth,
Have now begun a turn of gruesome hue
And sanguine shades make manifest a life
With which the leaves the sun cannot imbue.
Where once youth’s shine had bourgeoned through these hills
And sweetness of the air perfumed the land,
Now sullen limbs hang low, with fingers crack’d
As if by Hodur’s cold and mighty hand.
The souls come creeping, seeping through worn skin –
An erubescent glow becomes a cry
To Heaven; stately corpses standing tall
Are beckoning us all to watch them die.
While hushful tears drop silently to ground,
To tread upon them, ‘tis a deaf’ning sound.
– © 2000 Matt F. Esenwine, all rights reserved
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I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
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