So let’s celebrate the season for its gathering, rather than its ending of summer. Let’s write how beautiful the crisp air is—the evening bite of wind into apple cheeks—the blaze of reds and golds that can warm the day as cupping a mug hot cider will for chilled hands, how wheat glints in the fields, ready for its transformation into bread and communion.

I am grateful for Tom Snarky for sharing this poem by Linda Pastan (and to Todd Dillard for his thread on celebrating poets of autumn). Gorgeous!

For the first prompt, begin with the image that immediately comes to mind with autumn. What do you picture? Is it the omnipresent pumpkin, the bizarrely twisted and bumpy gourd, pumpkin spice lattes and maple bars? Is it a maple tree in full blaze? Is it heavy-headed mums teaching other flowers what real voluptuousness can bring to the yard? Is it pumpkin pie with nutmeg and cinnamon tingling on your tongue? Celebrate the season.

If it helps, start with the lines “I want to celebrate / color” for a ghostline. Be sure to erase the line and credit the poet for your inspiration.

The middle of the poem declares, “Look at the pumpkins, / it’s finally autumn!” Follow that instruction and look and describe the multitude of shapes and colors, the cornucopia of richness in pumpkins and gourds, apples and pomegranates, cranberries and carrots. Make a poem obscene in its autumn sweetness.

For the last prompt, write a list poem of all the joys and celebrations the year has brought you. Be specific. Let us hear your cat’s purring, feel a child’s small hand taking yours as you cross a street, curl into a flannel on chilly night while a campfire crackles and hisses.