Rifts in a fluttering canopy
Of tulip-yellow leaves.
A comfortable place,
Where leaves rustled, birds cried out
And everything was bathed
In autumnal mother-light.
Suddenly, today, it is the dying season.
Broken places
show unconcealed scars
Where once were sturdy poplar-pillars
Holding back the sky.
Today that sky is nearer, pushing down grey haze
Between the cowering branches.
In eerie, whitening light, birds and trees fall silent:
A freezing breeze will be rising soon.
But underfoot, the solid ground thickens yellow
Carpeted in crackling, gorgeous piles of gold.
And children’s swishing feet
Make a joyful noise.
We have come here to play–
To make the growing leaf-pile crunch
To run and shout, fall and rustle, toss leaf-rain, and laugh.
So sheltered, less and less, from the weight of the opening sky,
We play among the treasures of the dying, living wood.