Fade as a Leaf

Nevid and Dan must be desperate: it's been a while--days, maybe--since I've given them a falling-leaves poem.


This time of year my life is leaves,
Trees their own compost. So are we.
They can do this indefinitely.
Like us, I guess, though no oak grieves

At loss of oak. They just make more.
Like us, I guess. If seedlings know
The august stock from which they grow,
They do not say. They have in store

Leaves of their own--great oaks, the sound
Thin and bird-high in autumn wind.
Like us, they fall, and, whether sinned
Or sapling, find the common ground.

Leaves are my life, this time of year,
Knowing there will be more, then more.
It doesn't matter. What they're for
Is why I make them disappear.