Fall

There is no healing, nor reassurance

In the time when leaves fall.

Trees are bare

Like the bony fingers

Of some forlorn hand

Waiting

To branch out

And grip the air

That was once warmed by exhales

From leaves in spring

There is no healing, nor reassurance

In the sound of cracking leaves.

Brittle,

Stepped on

By worn, hurried shoes

But crisp,

Like starchy, percale sheets

Being broken into for the first time

And those leaves,

Soft,

Damp and torn,

Pressed into the pavement

Like the wallpaper

In your grandmother’s room

Before it became another other empty space

In a sold house that once was a home

There is no healing, nor reassurance

In the transfiguration of colours

Once green, now rusty

Like old swing sets

Holding shadows of little fingers

That never came back to play

And then there are those leaves,

Burning into maroon

Like the colour of stained hospital sheets

And morgues

Yet there is healing, and reassurance

In some leaves,

Golden,

Like the sunrise of a new life

And in those trees

That will grow new leaves

And look the same in spring

Until autumn comes again

Autumn,

It falls every year.