Fall Is the Wrong Analogy

this hesitant collapsing 
of a canopy that will billow 
in windy spring— 

absurd. Death does not waft with each dithering
tumult of air and no 
spirit resides 

in these wavery harvesters of light. If at all, 
in the heartwood that summer hurricanes 
shake with no intent 

less or more than stripping bare and 
finally cracking to battered 
stump.