An
October Tree Overlooks the Mississippi
Surrounded
by drying,
Half-dying
leaves,
Desperate
to wrest a bit more sun
To
their curling bodies
Before
winter hisses its frosty breath on them,
A long
clutch of leaves
Holds
fast to red.
Brilliant,
like a Christmas sled
In a
Norman Rockwell,
How
could my eye
Catch
sight of anything else?
It
spans the length of the trunk
And
reaches, reaches,
To the
limits of a sky-brushing branch.
It’s as
if the onset of winter
Crawls
up from below,
And if
it can just get high enough,
Its
color won’t bleed away
Or
force it to fall.
It’s
like a scarlet snake,
An
autumn anaconda
Slithering
its way always upward.
It’s
like a forgotten scarf
Beginning
to slip down a coat rack,
Still
clinging by its tassels.
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