When poets go on about autumn, it’s usually pretty depressing, lots of tears and bagpipes and lamenting over the “waning” and “dying” and the “swift-falling darkness.”

But we mustn’t be too hard on poets. They’re paid – sort of – to be gloomy, and autumn can be an emotionally confusing time for deep thinkers who expend great energy finding ways to take yearly climate patterns personally. And they’re right about one thing – no other season can hold a candle to autumn for sheer mystery and pathos. Lengthening shadows, the rustle and crunch of dry leaves and the smell of wood smoke can turn the mind down dim avenues of introspection. And just in case they don’t, you can always visit a corn maze.

The front range is lousy with corn mazes this time of year. Between Greeley and Pueblo, nearly a hundred acres of productive cropland have been transformed into nightmarish fields of bewilderment and horror. They all bill themselves as great places to test one’s memory and special acuity, but that’s pure tripe. If corn mazes test anything, it’s your mental stability and bladder control.

For adventurous souls who prefer their corn still on the cob with a side of menace, the question becomes one of scale. The Crazed Cornfield Maze in Thornton, for example, features a whopping 14 acres in which to become hopelessly lost while, over Platteville way, Miller Farms will drive you to despair on a mere five. For those in the southern metropolitan area in whom the twin spirits of compromise and convenience burn brightly, the 8-and-a-half-acre Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield corn maze offers all the frustration of its larger cousin plus the chance to spend hours recreating in a beautiful, pastoral setting without seeing any of it.

For most of the year, DBG’s 750-acre Chatfield spread on the working 19^th-century Hildenbrand Ranch near C-470 and Wadsworth Boulevard is a lovely district where smooth trails wander among grassy meadows, sapphire ponds and lush groves. From now until Halloween, however, penitents will come here from near and far to wander frantically among the rows wishing they’d thought to put a machete in their fanny pack.

The diabolical genius behind the Chatfield maze is its welcoming public aspect. Strolling up from the parking lot a short drive off West Deer Creek Canyon Road, one is immediately reassured by the quaint, 130-year-old white clapboard Deer Creek schoolhouse, a picturesque wooden bridge and the shady splendor of magnificent cottonwoods.  On open ground just beyond a pebbled watercourse, a yurt with a sign that says “EDUCATION INSIDE” gives the first hint of trouble. It’s not the idea of unstructured EDUCATION that disturbs, nor is the fact that somebody makes a living providing Mongolian teepees to a yurt-starved public cause for alarm. It’s that, “INSIDE,” the yurt is crawling with spiders.

Well, not real ones. More like pictures of spiders, accompanied by lots of information that’s supposed to allay fears about the eight-legged terrors but does nothing of the kind. Simply calling a jumping spider “salticidae” doesn’t make it more loveable, and no amount of dry anatomical explanations will make the allegedly peace-loving funnel spider welcome at an arachnophobe’s supper table. There’s also an aerial photograph of the maze. Sharply carved into a green square of tall corn is a colossal – visibly hungry – spider clinging to an 8-and-a-half-acre web. What diseased mind conceived this leafy outrage?

“Every year we do something to promote Denver Botanic Gardens,” explains DBG event coordinator Sara Buys. “Last year it was the Scientific and Cultural Facilities bear, this year we’re promoting the big bug exhibit that’s opening in March.”  Strange. Coming from her, the notion of a giant, corny deathtrap doesn’t seem so creepy and insane. To create a precise image within that imperfect medium, she says, paths are plowed under in late spring while the corn is about three feet high. When the remainder matures, adventure ensues. “We’re open until Oct. 31, but we’ll be busiest during the Pumpkin Festival in mid-October, and on the weekend right before Halloween.”

Fleeing the yurt, breathe deeply until the willies subside and continue along the northern verge of the cornfield until you come to what looks like a bit of carnival midway that lost it’s Tilt-a-Whirl but found the biggest funhouse this side of Coney Island. At mid-afternoon on a Saturday, the place is doing fair business – families, mostly, along with a heavy sprinkling of hapless couples and small knots of seniors who’ve tired of taking their corn cream-style.

The Chatfield maze is actually two mazes – the big one where the hungry spider lives, and a little one that’s impossible to get lost in. While intended for kids, the small one costs nothing to try and gives skittish grownups a chance to adjust to life between the rows. Volunteer Lee McDonnell is manning the entrance to the main attraction this afternoon, taking tickets and offering shots of insect repellent to the fearful – a terrible irony, that.

“It’s a good maze,” Lee says, obviously enjoying the sunshine and freedom of her post well outside of it. “A lot of people come during the day, but most people – kids especially – like to come later in the evening. I guess it’s really spooky after dark.”

Well, Lee, we could sit here chatting all day or we could get this show on the road. To the left, an “ENTER” sign stands before a neat passage into green oblivion. Maybe 20 feet away on the right, a pair of laughing, teenaged girls emerges from another marked “EXIT.” Is it that easy? Outta’ my way.

It takes two, three turns, tops, to realize you’re in way over your head, literally and figuratively. Dense walls of corn standing seven to eight feet high afford no glimpse of anything beyond the few yards of passage ahead and behind, and the constantly moving shadows make trying to identify a cardinal compass point a futile exercise. Worse, because one unyielding bank of thick, leafy green corn stalks looks remarkably like another, even carefully noted intersections fail to register on the second, third and fourth times around. Panic is an ugly word, so we’ll call that lump forming in your gut nascent hysteria, instead. As your frustration mounts, Lakewood residents Lindsay Knoftsger and Kyle Ecton suddenly materialize out of a side channel, smiling and relaxed.

“This is my first corn maze and I love it,” says Lindsay. “What a great way to spend an afternoon.” The two have been wandering around lost for about half an hour but display no obvious signs of madness. Kyle is a corn maze veteran, of sorts. “I did one a long time ago, when I was growing up in Iowa.” And you’re still not tired of corn? Sheesh! “We’re not making much headway,” he laughs, “but I think we’ve got this section pretty well covered.” Unreasoning good spirits are a symptom of madness, aren’t they?

After about 20 more minutes of blind alleys, false leads and uncertain backtracks, it dawns on you that the corn is evil. What at first seemed merely the rustling of broad, healthy leaves suddenly reveals itself as the sinister mocking of malevolent produce. The corn, you realize, is plotting against you, whispering terrible secrets to itself, cursing you in a secret language and deliberately hindering your progress. Less perceptive comrades may try to convince you that you’re being foolish, but you’ll know better. The once-silly maze rule against picking and throwing the corn assumes dreadful significance.

Just when you’ve reached the edge of reason, you suddenly wander into the maze’s halfway point. This is fortunate for two reasons. First, you can spend a few moments chatting with volunteer Bill Atkinson, who’s handing out snacks, water and encouragement from a little booth about 10 feet from where your nightmare began. So Bill, you ask, how many good, capable, not-stupid people require rescuing from the maze in a day’s time?

“Some young kids can zip through the whole thing in about 45 minutes, but anybody can finish in two hours,” Bill says, completely unmindful of your feelings. “If somebody just gets tired, those orange flags you can see from anywhere in the maze mark emergency exits. The only people who don’t come out on their own are people who don’t want to come out.”

After being harassed by vegetables and lied to by Bill, you are perfectly justified in bailing out then and there. And besides, Joelle Klein and Lauren Banks did the same thing and you wouldn’t call them whimps. Okay, so the Denverites were shepherding a flock of impatient children through the maze and Lauren had 30 pounds of ready-for-naptime draped around her neck.

“This was a really nice thing to do,” Joelle says, putting a positive spin on it. “I think the kids are getting tired, so we’re going to get them something to eat out front.” Whatever helps you look in the mirror, Jo. Even 9-year-old Dezirae, Noelle’s “Little Sister,” leaves with her dignity intact.

“It’s confusing, and harder than I thought,” Dezirae admits, “but it’s fun to find your own way.”

Walking back to the parking lot, even the close woods seem like Julie Andrews’ infinite meadow in The Sound of Music, not that young Jimmy and Michael would notice. Apparently unaffected by their ordeal among the rows, the Littleton boys scamper and chatter like insensitive monkeys.

“The kids one was real easy,” says Jimmy, 10, a boastful towhead wearing an orange tie-dyed T-shirt and an insufferable smirk. “I could run right through it!”

Oh yeah? Well, so could I. But I’ll bet the big one gave you a good scare.

“No, it wasn’t scary,” says 8-year-old Michael. “Now if a frog had jumped out at me, that would have been pretty scary.”