Autumn!

We've had some nippy temperatures in Ohio recently ... and a blanket feels good at night ... but I'm not complaining ... much. 

Oh, I do some shivering, and I do comment on the cold ... as it takes possession of my toes and fingers ... but that's not really complaining, is it?

It is autumn, after all ... time for cooler temperatures ... and, despite a period of adjustment to lower temperatures, autumn is one of my favorite seasons. 

I really get a kick out of watching the trees changing, day by day ... all those beautiful colors fanning out across the countryside.

In my childhood years I always looked forward to that annual display ... then, as a working adult, the autumn colors faded into the background ... but now ... oh, now ... I'm watching them again.

As far as today's poem is concerned ... one of my rare excursions into the world of rhyme, because I don't do it well ... I know that "piling up to my thighs" is a slight exaggeration. 

But stretching the truth is one of the building blocks of humor, right?

And rhyming "rises" and "thighs as" is a bit of a stretch, too ... but all done in an effort to be funny ... at least to elicit a smile.

Enough said. The poem:

AUTUMN!

My temperature rises

When leaves begin to fall,

Piling up to my thighs as

I try to rake them all.

© 1997

(originally published in Parnassus Literary Journal)

Today's word: exaggeration