Late September and the trees
have begun their letting go.
Egged on by a wind-howling
rain whipped up by thunder,
they pitch and thrash,
turning their leaves
like eyes up to the silver side,
rapt in a wrap of memory
greener than any season's worth.
I watch their sweet torment,
and how in the interval
between gusts they grow still,
as if to say what happened
didn't really happen, for see
how quiet we are.
And I am pulled back
to gaze again and then again
at what I saw and what I was.
