Late Autumn

~by Ananda Vrindavan

The leaves are almost to an end

Coming into burnt and dull colors

Even against the sun and blue sky

The cold creeps in on early morning

The cold hand of fear grips us tightly

As we try to wrap ourselves away from it.

The leaves are almost at an end

The quiet dark of winter comes early

And evening lights turn on by five.

Winter waves of joy

Rustle the last of the leaves

Piling them into heaps on the ground

Waiting for pick up by hard and underpaid

Workers, many of whom may feel like those leaves

That they can be pushed aside, pushed around,

Swept up to be cast away at a moment’s notice.

And we wonder at the discontent around us?

We are emptier of love than the bare trees

And more fallen than the leaves we walk on.