Of the chiming bells of the Angelus
Of the flowers once pretty and strong, on the lawn
Oh! Autumn, you are a very superb season!

Let's talk about the petals and sepals fallen from the sky
Where the trees are stunned and almost undressed
And the astonished birds which have fallen from the clouds
Oh! Autumn, I love your wondrous and natural smile.

The season of autumn has a sensational scene

These are poems about time, mortality, death, decay and loss ...

Ono no Komachi translations

These are my modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems of Ono no Komachi, who wrote tanka (also known as waka) and was renowned for the beauty of her verse as well as for her physical beauty. Komachi is best known today for her pensive, melancholic and erotic love poems. Her bio follows the poems.

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, wild and blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are original haiku written by Michael R. Burch, many of them under the influence of the Oriental masters of the form.

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
—Michael R. Burch

***

Silver
by Michael R. Burch

These are poems about Frost, Ice and Winter, plus poems I have written after Robert Frost. 

As Fall Begins, I Look Within