Autumn leaves

Leaves linger in surrendered shrouds,
holding lightly to the last of Summer,
sodden in their fraying moments;
knowing that the hour draws closer

when they must fall and fall and fall
out of the place they called home,
finding new ways of being in the
dust of the chilly day; writing in

coloured prose, their message on
the ground, holding their arms up
to the inevitable rotting, which is
their destiny and always was the

place that they would find them
selves, in the ever-changing cycle
of life and death, written in the
heart of unforgiving seasons.