The sound of wooden rake scratching concrete.
walk nearer – rustle of dry leaves.
This, the beginning of a Japanese haiku
or maybe a Japanese film –
dry sound first, then rake, then leaves, then man –
that evokes autumn
too near the heart
to need a title
the sound stops. silence. man leans on rake.
then match strikes, there’s almost yes an echo
from the dry leaves not yet fallen from the trees
in the forest all around.
then the first tickle in the nostrils
of burning leaves which
the two-year old scrunching through the trees
hand in hand with older sister
will remember all his life
like the silence between
two lines of a haiku or
the silence of the moment when the seasons turn.
and who can say
what the golden-orange-yellow-brown trees
slowly stripping in a rustle as of silken nightgown
to the tune of, more a whisper than a breeze –
what the trees feel
as the incense of their, their, burning leaves
steals like a last caress
for each such faithful
lover?
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