Fall?

But what if it’s an autumn leaf?  Can you

Lean back to April and the early spring?

If so, the challenge will be making new

From withered old.  The leaf may be a wing

October soon will send across the chill

Of air, Vermont in varying leaf veins

Of yellow, scarlet, orange and green—a thrill

In dying, dying lacking winter pains

Of ice and blast of wind.  The hints are there

But distant.  Only truest prophets see

The omens as the threats they are, the blare

Of death more like a gentle, Buddhist prayer.

  The leaf cannot be saved to miss its fate

    Because designed to bear eternal freight.

© Phillip Whidden