There seems an abundance of leaves,
as if they are never ending, infinite as stars,
waiting for the wind to play with
and disperse them like snow in the morning effervescence.

After all, what is a single leaf?
Susceptible to wind and sun,
his heart willing to turn over,
and open silver for both

Perhaps, the leaf thinks, what is a lone man?
Susceptible to women and leaves.

But really, a leaf is foreign.
We cannot pretend to know his whims.
Does he prefer the pale draught of morning
to the golden cataract of evening?

Does his heart yearn more for the touch of rain
or the endless blanket of midnight?
Any simile we find is but conjecture,
for snow and wind and sun are strangers, too.

Snow, I suspect, harbors an unrequited love for summer.
This accounts for how melancholy it shimmers in moonlight.

~

Why does water so love light’s surreptitious gaze?
Wind, jealous of their flirtation,
interjects with a seductive ripple.

~

The trees are like a woman on the threshold of middle age:
She is ripe, verging on overripe.
She has the faintest marks to suggest
what will be her slow fall into winter, barrenness:
lines when she smiles; and flipped over by wind,
the first creeping color down in her roots.