Looking Up…

I stopped
at the cold-crisp edge of morning,
breath hanging white,
and looked up.

The sky was a clean blue bowl,
so bright it almost hummed,
a blue that had been washed
by every frost that came before.

And the maples let go ,
not all at once,
never all at once,
but one leaf at a time,
patient as a heartbeat,

each one turning
in the tilted sunlight
into gold, real gold,
glittering as it fell,
flashing like a coin
flipped slow through the air.

They came down through the blue
like the year was raining
everything it had saved,
spending it careless
on the grass, the path,
the shoulders of anyone
who happened to be standing there.

And the wind kept its hands
in its pockets, easy,
and the light kept pouring
through the thinning branches
like it had nowhere else to be,

and the leaves kept falling,
and the sky stayed blue,
and nothing asked anything of me.

So I stood there ,
hands in my own pockets,
collar turned up,
a man with nowhere to be
and let autumn
spend itself on me.