Autumnal

Autumnal https://i0.wp.com/barrenmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/eon5.jpg?fit=1080%2C1350&ssl=1 1080 1350 Laurie Koensgen Laurie Koensgen https://barrenmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/lauriekoensgen.png 01/03/2020 01/03/2020

Not dormancy, but sleep’s precursor:
sheaves of shutting down.

Rust in the crankshaft, dust in the fields,
a languor in the clouds.

The leaves are listless in the eaves;
the trees are grieving their release.

Header photograph © Eon Alden.

About the Author

Laurie Koensgen

Laurie Koensgen lives in Ottawa, Canada, where she advocates for the arts and teaches creative writing to middle school students. Her poems have appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Literary Review of Canada, In/Words, Barren Magazine, Juniper: A Poetry Journal, Kissing Dynamite, Black Bough Poetry, Re-side and elsewhere. She was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry 2018, and recently received Honourable Mentions in Arc’s Diana Brebner Prize and The New Quarterly’s Occasional Verse Contest.

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