Vermont 1992 copyright 1992 by Tracy Marks She touched the brilliant leaves so gingerly, afraid they would die too soon in early fall, crumble into crisp brown at the brush of her hand, or worse, lie limp and unresponding. Foliage has its season, she reassured herself. My colors are as bright, my colors as as ever-changing. Death is only a passing autumn breeze. Then stooping to the ground she gathered together piles and piles of fallen foliage, leaves from golden oaks and crimson maples, leaves she could not name, of softer orange hue, and those few still newly green, singing My colors are as bright, my colors are as ever-changing, singing when a sudden gust surged through her hill of leaves, her autumn palace, stole from her lips the cry that ended her song, the silence that ended her cry, left her shaking, forlorn, holding only a single remnant of autumn splendor only a single leaf, brown and crisp and crumbling into winter. |