While I Read Poetry by Those Whose Arrival of Autumn Has Come

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Where I have lived, Summer seems to swallow up    
most of the other three seasons in one gulp,    
   
like a pot of simmering chowder that sits    
on a stove steaming since the first of the year.    
   
But to my surprise, or maybe chagrin    
it's my birthday today and I feel a slight chill.    
   
It's early morning and it actually feels    
like fall setting in 'cause the fans are turned off.    
   
I can think clearly now as I linger in bed    
and I hear the landscapers start to kick in,    
   
edging the lawns as they work up the street    
and blowing the leaves, yet to fall, off the grass.    
   
My body's in shock, disbelief is more like it    
with quarrelsome birds in the trees going quiet.    
   
But summer won't give up the ghost, not just yet,    
So for me, Fall waits as I commiserate,    
   
tired of chowder, of fresh fruit and sunshine    
and hungry for cheeks of beef stew with root veggies,    
   
with puffy white dumplings that float on the top    
like October nimbus clouds normally do,    
   
of strudels and crumbles with tart apple fillings    
that I haven't tasted since last year next Sunday    
   
while my army of spices stand, proud and abreast,    
they're Shilling's pantry soldiers ready for service,    
   
waiting for roast fowl with ground sausage stuffing,    
sugar carrots, young peas, and baby red spuds.    
   
Though temperatures have mellowed out for a day,    
they'll be back to nineties Fahrenheit once again.    
   
So as I plan what I'll hand out come Halloween,    
Autumn and I long to meet, face to face.    
   
   
(entered in a DUP competition)    
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