I know a dying leaf when I see one,
it’s plump life being sucked back
into the branch that once gave it life,
so the branch could live
leathered span of serrated lobes
lit by fall’s flame in a slow burn that creeps
along a landscape of conceding cells,
puffing out the last of summer’s spirit
the spirit of a more verdant day gives way
to a conflagration of crimson on pitchy limbs,
arboreal tongues of fire flicking the nipping air;
a preamble to the end of things
the blaze dies down, and the last sap of life
is drawn deep into the branch’s marrow,
freeing the leaf from it’s ashen perch
to let it drop…and float…and rest
a tilting of air 