you could not possibly
convince me
that all those tumbling leaves
are dead.
how they glide and scurry
so animated--mistakenly apparent
to be a creature living
purely on the whimsy
of the wind.
stumble and twirl,
scraping along blacktop
and pockmarked cement,
hiss and rattle
in chittering conversation
over the dynamics of
a late November gale.
how they tease and twitter!
nipping at my heels and toes,
lifting toward my ankles,
sailing through the spokes of my
whirling bicycle tires
as though they were a traveling carnival
refusing to settle
until the end of
the season.
I turn my head to follow---
perhaps to see where it is they all go,
those that don't fall into
the sewer traps lined along the gutters,
or the decomposing piles
collecting in ditches,
yard waste bags,
and potholes---
but the air has fallen still,
the naked boughs cease their
farewell waving,
and the silence of gravity
takes over--
leaving those frolicking skeletons
solemn,
to pause
and to play at death
once again.
but that trick doesn't fool me,
nor the grumbling cars that jaunt them up
from the lips
of the curb
as the road leads so many ways away
but spits them back on their
wayward journey
without path
or destination--
or perhaps with just
a vague
impression
of somewhere---
some time
away from here---
that calls for dead things
to fall
and then be
spurred
back into living
motion
yet again.
