A poem
Autumn’s advance surrounds me,
nature’s cycles spinning forward as always.
Yet now each falling leaf feels personal,
a tiny loss whispering of fading futures.
Once abundant branches now stretch bare,
my family tree withering,
leaving me the last clinging leaf.
The winds of time
will soon take me too.
Before the final severing,
I reminisce in the lingering golden light,
remembering long-ago laughter
echoing across decades,
past moments blurred
but heart-warming still.
The sun sets early these days,
the coming dark closer each evening.
But in twilight’s mist
the silhouettes of loved ones linger,
specters I conjure to share this last season.
I collect cast-off leaves,
press them between pages
relics preserving fleeting memories.
On each vein, a story waits to be retold
before the words blow away.
But the well of recollections is running dry,
its waters seeping into silty earth.
The solitude now will only spread,
my voice but one more
fading with the chorus of our kin.
Yet as the chill night arrives,
I will wrap myself
in remembrance’s patchwork cloak
and watch the sky transform,
Autumn’s end, a prelude to another turning,
the cycle continuing though my chapter closes.
Contentment warms me
as the last leaves fall.