Each day now yellow leaves gravely fall
from the maple guarding the window,
this house.
And day by day this empty eye of glass
becomes itself a world of yellowing
telling of more than leaves
drifting earthward deaf to the songs
of beginnings, endings, all
short dreams between.
All this at edge of what I call myself,
myself the cautious one of flesh
wanting more than solitude of bone,
wanting to stand here a willing witness
to such seeming innocence of that
descending in golden loveliness,
bright shield against the frown of winter,
its hard laughter that no longer
recalls cousinage of spring.
I could retreat to wrmth of interior
rooms where firelight beguiles even
shadows into life,
a cheating of demise finding
consolation in the slow
burning of logs.
But I remain fixed here
amorous of such a scene,
this patient witness to time
that dwells with the
yellowing of leaves
silent in their fall.
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