FALLING LEAVES

Now. Everything once more goes silent,

like the old, trying hard to forget themselves,

basking in the granules of sunlight,

like me at the window, pleased

at the leaves’ one-by-one descent. No wind.

Like those sweepers

raking the broad earth into leafpiles.

You think they’ll fish out matches and start the burn,

but they pause in this fall moment, speaking softly.

A gust strews

autumn all over the street;

shapes of dry leaves, thin and frail,

stick to time’s clean wall.