Rage, Rage

Note: To enhance your experience in reading this poem, first read "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," by Dylan Thomas. Full text can be found at the link here. This poem was written as a response to a piece of artwork created by an old ghost, and in tribute to Thomas's poem. A certain paradox is intended.

Autumn is on fire.
It is burning toward oblivion:
a summer camplight,
a winter hearth.
The trees are shooting flames
through crimson and pumpkin leaves.
The branches reach out
like external synapses from
a man’s brain, into the atmosphere.
And they are burning.
The light pops and pulses:
boiling blood in his veins
at the thought of a last kiss with this, his distanced lover.
The uproot-sounds of trees in the falling season
call to the edge of the universe where
the lover is alone in a winter of another world.
There she tiptoes in snow, on the spots of faraway stars,
her cogs in the sky: pegs to hold her in a gravity
that does not exist in her steps:
all the pieces of her life float in a child’s bubbles,
rising, spinning, bursting without warning.
There is darkness and air, cold and thin.
She returns from the past, from other spheres,
for the great fire of their autumnal histories.
Yes, autumn is on fire.
The season roars with his passion
for the lover who will not have him,
the girl who watches with open, dry eyes
as he moves toward the flame, knowing—
crisped and spent—they are altogether finished.
The love that calls to the borders of existence
is not sufficient to stop the heat and thickness.
The grass greens while the world burns;
the lovers smile as they join the dying of the light.

Note (Part II): If requested, I'll write follow-up posts to help extrapolate meaning from more difficult poems. Readers, let me know if you're at all interested. I understand that sometimes the mystery is more intriguing, though. Cheers, and thanks for reading.