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The Colorful Flurries of Autumn Take Me to the Past
Prose Poetry
the crunch of the leaves underfoot is my narrative in the morning, when I am just a yawn made corporeal, more ghost than body in this space between waking and living
the reds remind me of nights spent in front of a space heater, my body clothed in layers that weren’t necessary in other people’s houses, but I didn’t mind the chill back then when everything felt like an adventure against the odds
the oranges come alive under sunlight’s scraping touch, and the wind knocks the tiny dancers askew until they flutter to the ground — all lost ballerinas, their feet sore and misshapen, ready to crouch down, spent, against the cold floor
the yellows tell me old stories that I’d long thought forgotten — the way my mother laughed too harshly, like a witch’s cackle on Hallow’s Eve, and the iciness of my father’s eyes was far more than the chill to my bones
we let the leaves scatter and spew their solemn language of the rot and death of the world — because autumn is the time for dying, right before the first frost brings everything to a standstill, and only when Persephone alights from the underworld do we have a glimpse of warmth and flowers again
but the leaves — their decay does not bother me; instead, I see struggles made real, those things we always sought to bury in the snow, the last glimmers of scarecrow men in the shriveling fields, the last taste of a pumpkin before it too is gone until another year brings its bounty of hope for better days…
