Autumn Dusk
	
	Half-hidden in the dusk,
	sloping roofs clasp autumn branches
	to their eaves. Chimney smoke
	wanes like a departing armada's sails
	into purple skies. No birds rustle above--
	In this silence, my thoughts fold
	into the graying edge of winter,
	where months perish with their moons.

	Slow Reader

	Long lilac branches, showing years
	of growth, protect the tilting trellis
	from the sun. A ruby colored hummingbird
	flits near the feeder, and a lonely warbler
	has begun his chirp-chirp song. One well-worn,
	faded wicker chair awaits--warily she sits upon
	the dewy seat and elevates her legs; she holds a book,
	but stares across the lawn. Those minutes drift
	like dream clouds through the sky; she lays
	her hat aside, then stretches out her arms to yawn.
	Perhaps a cup of tea may help, but oh, to read
	another page will do no harm. When shadow
	patterns checker on her knee, and move across
	her chair, she sighs and rises--quite reluctantly.

	Waiting For Spring
	
	October, what will you bestow? You�ve left
	the tulips and long daffodils unborn,
	and open ferns aloof in darkest glens;
	your brown leaves have revealed a scarlet thorn

	to snag the frosty mornings. Mallards will
	not light upon the weir, and open skies
	remove their lightest blue. The fallow rose
	is waiting for the spring--and like my eyes,

	discolored branches search for green. I�ll count
	the small supernal stars that heaven yields
	until the dismal gray has passed, then smile
	when May�s sweet-smelling earth perfumes the fields.

Karen Kelsay is a native Californian, who grew up along and on the Pacific, and explains her love for writing poetry about the sea. At the same time, she has written narrative, romantic, and fairy-theme poems that were created with other backgrounds and foreign lands in mind. She attended the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she studied art and history, and then devoted much time to traveling. Several of her rhymed and free-verse verses have been published in Love�s Chance, The Oak, The Shepherd, Designing On Line, The Storyteller, and Muyori Poetry Journal.