The sun is especially playful in autumn,
blazing through greens, reds, crimsons.
Glorious yellows this year.
The sun creates shadows on a maple.
A black snake, its mouth open.
In an Indonesian forest, a woman
swallowed by a python shudders
as she slips through its body.
The shadow leaves look sinister.
Not so the tops of trees, highlighted
as if they are stars on a stage in their riotous costumes,
the wind lifting them.
A contrast to the pastel background
of the serene cloudless sky.
Perhaps in some lost myth a painter
misplaced his colors and an enchanted artist
outfitted nature with lavish costumes
and a choreographer taught the trees
an infinite number of dances
so that the show wouldn’t ever be repeated.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 4.
Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her most recent poems have been published in Global South, Tipton Poetry Journal, Arlington Literary Journal, San Pedro River Review, and The Loch Raven Review. Her latest fiction has appeared in The Hong Kong Review, Litro, The Bookends Review, Rio Grande Review, and The Evening Street Review. She is also a book reviewer and essayist whose pieces have appeared in many journals.
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