A thousand leaves are left.
Three are falling now.
A thousand leaves are left.
Three are falling now.
The leaves of all I’ve read
stir as I walk, reproach
me with their dryness, beg
to be tramped
under into something good.
Some years brown stands up, elbowing aside
the other colors, those
splashy failures of the papers still falling,
even here, even in this den of words.
Brown. Not yellow, not red, not gold. No,
don’t tell me you see them in me.
This time it’s brown:
Humble suitable reasonable plain old dependable
brown.
Not chestnut, not rust, not burnt sienna.
Brown.