Come & dance with me Summer’s second round:
Around the Greenwood tree in gladdest delight,
As kernels swell & grapes sweeten, as profound
A harvest as ever Mother Nature alone could offer:
Coffers of life filled to fullest brim by bright sunlight.

Come & dance this olden dance of August’s end:
Lammas green now tinted sad hues of gold & red,
Winds yet warmly crying: Summer’s death forfend!
Autumn magisterial creeps forth from deeping glen:
Foliage flaring in colors crimson, as if branches bled.

Come & dance this wild runic dance of ages yore:
Passed down by Pan from lost Arcadian groves – 
To taste is to savor, a season of goldenrod’s favor,
Final harvest fulling under waning Sturgeon Moon:
Boons of barley & brandy, & freshly baked loaves.

Come & dance with me Summer’s second round:
Revel & writhe to this madly rilling reel of pipes,
& match pennies for pumpkins pound-on-pound,
Corn grown high enough to hide scarecrow’s grin:
Nothing by October’s dim dawning is left unripe.

[Scott J. Couturier is a Rhysling-nominated poet and prose writer of the weird, liminal, and darkly fantastic. His work has appeared in numerous venues, including The Audient Void, Spectral Realms, Tales from the Magician’s Skull, Space and Time Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Weirdbook. His book of short stories The Box is available from Hybrid Sequence Media, while his collection of speculative poetry I Awaken in October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween is available from Jackanapes Press. He works as a copy and content editor for Mission Point Press, also co-editing the anthology series Weird Fiction Quarterly. Currently he lives an obscure reverie in the wilds of northern Michigan with his partner/live-in editor and two cats.]