a few final leaves shilly-shally down
like late arrivals before curtain
who cannot find a seat but scurry
into the stands of dark maples
drawn down by rain that casts
tree trunks like dark heavily muscled
elephant legs, gleaming in the rain
these dark trunks sketched in by
strokes of palette knife before
all those leaves that have left
—it is empty comedy:
summer’s wall of forest has become
a vista penetrable as air
bleak as forgotten
paint
