Dying Leaves

The dying leaves

                             lie in dense drifts

across the fenced space behind my home.

Summer’s last refuge, the green grass

pokes out from beneath the decomposition.

Soon, the grass blades will die like the leaves,

and winter’s glacial coat will cover

the hibernating ground.

The snow always reminds me of innocence,

while the half-alive leaves, shed from guilty trees,

is evidence of too much living.

Falling and wind-blown, the leaves mark time.

Each one is a minute or an hour or perhaps a day,

counting down the moments towards death.

In Autumn, the leaves seem a waste.

Clumped together in piles or scattered about

by the wind, they paint a blurry image

of some vague, yet regrettable loss.

Through my window, I see the naked

and unabashed trees flaunt their bare limbs.  

Heavy with dying, their leaves

lie listless upon the earth.

I am the shed leaves—scattered evidence

of the tree’s former living. Each fragment shapes

my dying and the regret of not living.

And I am the greedy, abandoned tree,

counting its losses as necessary,

relinquishing its dressing,

one stitch at a time,

in single, shredded pieces.

I do not die then.

Instead, I shed my own living

to withstand the dormant winter;

so in springtime I might dig my roots

deeper into soil and rock and rot,

grow larger,

become fed

by the fertile death

of my leaves.

© Ami Mattison



Flickr photo courtesy of joiseyshowaa


For imperfect prose