Autumn

In Hotten’s Dictionary of Modern Slang,

Cant, and Vulgar Words (London, 1860),

Autumn is listed as one of the slang terms

For execution by hanging. You can see,

With a bit of a stretch, the inspiration—

Hanged bodies fall from the scaffold, and leaves fall

From trees in autumn. Autumn’s a dying time.

Still, it’s a little jarring, no? The season

Of mists and mellow fruitfulness doesn’t seem

Much like gallows humor, despite the mocking

Halloween embrace of death. You’re thinking this

In high country in the American West,

Under a stand of clonal aspens gone gold,

The usual cloudless blue vault overhead,

A far cry from Victorian London’s smoke—

Autumn. All in the drop, the execution.

These cliffs and mesas do it well. Clean. Sudden.

One moment everything’s still a dusty green,

The next, bright leaves are falling and branches bared.

Maybe it’s justice that worms burrow through books,

Words being little drillers of holes themselves—

Enter via hanging, exit through autumn.