Content

How like crickets the leaves
Now dry and brittle
Scrape and chirp
Across the hardened dirt
Moving with the east wind
Scuttling along in schools
Forming drifts along the way

Before the chill
Can reach the bone
The stunning colors
Will have dropped away
The tepid brown and grays
Will lighten and darken
Reading clouds or slanted sunshine

And when the chill
Stiffens the shrunken grasses
With its hoary dusts
Making frosted leave cakes
And crinkles underfoot
Our words visible in the air
The summer will be a past life

We will walk out in the snow
Footprints trailing behind
Like pieces of a squandered life
That you could follow home
Or leave for someone to find
That perhaps on the same path
They will find you and change things

And not that we would change
Even if the footprints always circle
We are sure we choose the route
Sometimes going back the same way
Or cutting across the open space
Always finding each other again
Content not to understand or judge

We will live indoors now
Shaking boots and tossing scarves
Quietly watching listless trees
Clutching the thick warmed air
Cozy and hearing the wind
I will pull you close and wait
Until you squeeze me and smile