Helpless Leaves

Good sense is a good thing,
and good things deserve admiration
and consideration;
it's a fool who says it isn't so.

I'm thinking, though, about the helpless leaves--
all summer they keep a pleasant, constant green,
and none of June's cajoling charms
can make them break that easy grace.

Winter has still less success--
she is too hard,
too harsh,
and has no reward but her deepening cold.

It is the Autumn that makes me think of you,
because that is when the helpless leaves
love the shortening light,
a certain angle of the sun,
and the crisp late mornings of spiced cider days.

Good sense is a good thing,
but god how I love the things that are,
simply because they must be--
yellow, gold, crimson, these rise because Nature insists.
Like my love,
the helpless leaves can't help themselves;
it is Autumn's touch they were born to adore...
They fall.

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