That Time Of Year

 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs . . .

                                                                                  Sheikhzabur's Sonnet 73.

 

Canada is a country in which for six months the trees go naked; for the other six the people go naked.

                                A Somali bushwoman's definition of Canada

 

 

It is that time of year here now when the maple trees go crazy with cold

And throw away their silken sarongs like silly-billy Somali bedlamites

When the creeping chilling airs of fall render the sun's hot hard-on cold old

As bootless as Hugh Hefner's bloated with Niagara of Viagra or as castrated catamite's

When bears hide hibernating in their holes dreaming of golden honey dandy days

When the sensible Canadian geese gong-honk their way way down South

Where the sun sizzles with savage Somali Summer endless hotdog dog days

When I feel the cold freezing creeping creepy carpet of winter death

Stealing on torturing on the green golden glad glades and dales of the forest

When Nature the Primary Scripture of Allah memento mories heedless humanity

When leaves proudly bust out "look ma no counterfeit colour!" and put on their Sunday best

Only to fall fluttering into death's patient greedy cold captivity

Then do I remember

What a wonderful abbreviated Technicolor lie is this feverish lusty life's ember.