Falling Colors
It’s November
We have used up
Our allotment of color for this year;
The pigment wells have run dry
Colors are draining from the landscape.
Inexorable fading
Among the maples after a drunken Halloween binge
The reds wither in unpicked apples or
Go into hiding –
Submerged as cranberries or
Crouching in the holly
Yellows and greens
Have more stamina but even they
Are sinking quickly, visibly, into the soil.
On a warm day
The blue sky
Is tepid and wan
And my energy filters
Down through my numb, wiggling toes
Chasing the colors
Flexing in hopes of priming the pump
Even as I succumb to the unfulfilled promise
Of a long winter’s nap.
November 2009
