The fall of all

Autumn days dry up too soon,
falling like burnt auburn leaves as they always do,
leaving their shriveled husks disintegrating
under piles of tangled memorial junk.
I wander home at night and get lost in the glare of streetlights
and the eyes of passing strangers
none of them knowing how I can see how they look at me,
the way my vestigial form grazes their primordial brain.

The clocks take me back an hour
To a time when I felt brighter
A time that is now weary and wild
fading in light and sound
into vapidity.
Blanched white fingers struggle with buttons and zips
Of tops and ties round scarfs that bind
Anything to hold me in, hold me together
while Frost bites at my finger tips and whispers in my ear:
‘To yield with a grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of a love or a season’