Thin Then, November

When the arduous season conies, again, 
unexpectedly, air rushes through 
needled trees causing a sudden 
shift of time, a shift of light: 
this new hue, this new sound. 
And we listen to leaves, like words, 
scratch and crack through the frigid sky, 
and watch as nature begins 

to die — gracefully — full of our own 
death. It is what we cannot pronounce, 
the commonness, the thinness of our 
transient present. It is with us 
still, flattened, like pressed leaves: 
imperishable things imagined.