Here is a poem for the season ~ like a zaftig ode to Autumn: bountiful, curvaceous, round, pumpkiny. A succulent feast!
by Lesleigh Owen © 2006
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Autumn’s smooth, puffy bronze cheeks,
salty sweet chin
Gently creaking sounds of awakening,
Bones groaning like the cracking
of a rusty cellar door,
Autumn, with her dusty-wheat-scented breaths,
whose round, curving, gently drooping body
polishes the world into
smooth, gray contours
Her eyes,
like newly-discovered amber
with never-popped air bubbles,
warm the room like vanilla-scented candlelight
as she envelops the world in her
spicy rolls of flesh
Summer’s not the time for me:
Sunlight that casts angular shadows in wide-open mouths
No more feeling the scrape of sand
sloughing over my dense curves,
trying to whittle down my folds of flesh
into smooth, plastic expanses of cookie cutter skin
No more poppy-scented laughs
that chime like dissonant dinner bells
and abrade my delicate ears
Bright white light
Take away my sight
Thin, hungry, sweaty bodies,
arms shaking, smiles flaking, biceps quaking
Frozen in flashes of sunlight on teeth
False idols of perfection
that die before they can ever
live a full-bodied life
Autumn, that sweet, round, wise, dangerous old woman
arrives slyly in her orange, Cinderella-like pumpkin –
as round and majestic as people –
tossing dried, crackling, russet leaves like confetti or candy:
“Throw me something, grandmother!”
Autumn: Happy, crisp, nutmeg, rounded season
My mouth opens and closes in happy little O’s
over words like “orange” and “clove,”
circular, bouncing words,
round, rich, and warm.
Leaves bend and snap beneath my ponderous weight
while the scent of earth weaves like cinnamon
through my sinuses.
Yawning, indolent light puffs gently through
twisted branches and desiccated leaves,
shining golden orange
like heaps of buttered, cinnamon-scented, steaming mashed yams
or lightly-oiled strings of spaghetti squash
Walking this cooling, linear stretch of sidewalk,
I am tempted to bite into the toothy, yellow winds
that crease around my body like well-starched sheets,
to jump high and far,
passing through the low-hanging laundry
snapping in the sky,
jump miles away from all scents of limestone and exhaust,
to throw my gray, woolen poncho over the clouds
and roll in the decaying scent of leaves
that stick to my face
like allspice on a baker’s hands
I can finally breathe beneath this nubby grayness
that stretches like a fluffy headscarf
over the dome of the sky.
Seasonal bounty,
Harvest time, time for rest
Shelving our immature dreams
And discovering reverence for plenty
At night, I eat ginger carrot soup for supper
and slurp pumpkin custard from heirloom dishes
My squash-shaped body, –
honored for its softness,
its abundance,
its life-affirming heaviness –
snuggles into the scratchy red blanket
crocheted for me by my mother
while I bounce children and tradition
on my plump, arthritic knees
and sip cocoa and warm candlelight.
Fatness and autumn:
Round, pumpkiny, bountiful:
A sensual feast
Fatness and autumn, –
lush and earth-scented as mounds of warm flesh –
dance together in gentle spirals
like leaves in a windstorm
Come evening time, Autumn and I sit
like old friends,
cackling on the front porch,
bellies bouncing together
while heavy, purple mugs of chamomile tea
warm our loving, generous,
fleshy hands.
Autumn Woman ~ Tali Marotz
Enchanted Zaftig 