Today the weather is calm;
it is a gelatinous film
layered over cars and beggars.
Leaves are falling, slowly,
as though autumn were
mere suggestion.
They need not heed
a season because season
is just a word;
a simple measure of change,
and we
need not follow.
Change is thoughtless,
and colors shift
without direction or pleading.
We’re all a little ruddier
than we were yesterday.
Tomorrow,
we’ll be a little more.
After,
the trees in white snow
will be naked.
Ice on bare flesh,
numbed fingers and toes;
remember
we’ve been here before,
within mist and cold,
within particles of light
on a snowflake.
We dance and fall, slowly,
as though life were
mere suggestion.
We need not heed—
life is just a word.