Leaf

The bright spring tints droop, torn shades
Of green, half browned, half turned dun

As dust, so that now the oaks
Look dimmed, bent, braced by the pines

Who will hold them once they fall,
Once snow has come back to knock

Their last scorched flags to the ground.
Don’t you just love time, the way

It makes each shift look the same?
Same spring, same fall, year on year—

Not like the rest of the shapes
Change takes, the flash floods, slumped cliffs,

The here it was, now it’s gone.
Time loves its poems, days and years

That come back changed not so much,
Not too bad, a bit dimmed, rhymed.