Look up
Notice that leaf
on an uppermost branch.
The wind challenges
its heroic grasp.
*
All of its treemates
have long since released
their tenuous hold on life
blowing as they do into
far pastures and lanes,
byways fill with their corpses.
*
They reveal
as they die
the winter’s architecture
of the cottonwood tree-
A ghost in black relief-
the autumn moon watching
through its arms.
*
Look up
The leaf is holding on
to what is not meant for it -
Holding on
to this idea of immortality -
all the while losing
its grip
on the one life it has known.
*
This leaf
is one of millions of leaves
come and gone
in this ghost’s lifetime.
*
In autumn we say goodbye.