Last month they were dropping tentatively,
as if they weren’t sure if they should stay or go,
but its September now, and the leaves here
are finally beginning to fall in earnest.

Now they know that there’s no going back —
this is their time to mount the forest pulpit
and sermonize about impermanence.

Any little breeze, and another one tears off
and goes sailing through the air, bearing
small crinkled messages about old age and death.

We all imagine these leafy letters are not addressed
to us, even though the evidence is pretty convincing —
everything changes, is born, thrives for awhile,
and eventually fades away, as if it never happened.

How much of the humble dust beneath our feet
is composed of our ancestors’ remains?

Arising and vanishing are the way of things,
yet there is in the midst of the drama
that which is never implicated.

I was here before all the ancestors. You were too.
Births came upon us, lives came upon us,
deaths came upon us, so many times
that we eventually lost track.

Just so, what’s to actually remember — a procession
of phantoms whirling their plastic fantastic batons,
weaving like drunks on a bleary Saturday Night,
pretending to be somebody or occasionally
nobody, singing coarse praises to irony
and unquenched desire?

Indeed, life is beautiful, poignant and grand,
and let’s admit it, whether we like it or not,
we all love it, which is why we keep
coming back for more.

Let the leaves fall, let the rain fall, and the snow,
and the cleansing Spring winds, let them blow,
and the bounty of Summer — all is good.

Take your Darling by the hand or go alone,
wade out into it, this majestic emptiness,
and be astonished, again and again,
just holding a leaf in your hand.