THIS LEAF FALLS (HERBSTSTURM)

This leaf falls
And is flattened to the ground.

Imprinted on the pavement
By a dozen booted feet
At once defined and later, now with ribs
And skeletal remains,
Competing with the sticky wrappers
And tin cans,
It slowly fades to dust
And blows away on the
Gusting autumn wind.

This leaf was sapful in its prime,
A verdant flag of spring’s surprise
And summer’s scented deck.

Beribboned on this tree’s mast
It sails, obedient and unthanked,
To autumn’s fateful end,
Unknowing, yet, the fate befalling all
That try to hide from icy winter’s thrall.

This leaf once gave succour to a mighty oak
That knew naught of the part it played
In this oak’s mighty cause,
Nor felt the wrench that stripped it
Of its life when autumn gales
Called time on its brief life
And sped it on to winter’s grip,
Its sap now dripping
From a terminal wound
On ground which men once tilled,
Where milk was churned,
And summer’s stubble burned.

This leaf meanders drunk.

Bereft of succour from that mighty trunk
As in the stillness of a dead man’s fall,
Its sails, now wings, dance in the eddies
Of a sullen sky, so quiet and cold.

So desperate in its meagre wisps
To keep its height above the clouds
That threaten death from every squall
It spins and spins but then surrenders
To its only fate
Knowing well that when it hits the ground
The sound it makes will be as bones
That clatter in the charnel house
As autumn’s auburn sun consumes
And autumn’s gales sound out
Their melancholy tunes.