The Maple Leaf

A Picasso yellow maple leaf
tumbles though the fall breeze
and cuts through
My sleep blurred vision.

The leaf flies closer
I see it from the edge of my eye
a sunspot
A fly
A puzzling geometric salute

It is one of many shadows splayed
Across the bleak October morning.

the sky is shrouded by a heavy
spun veil of clouds
The morning lethargic
Chill sweeps the air with
prying white light.

I toddle blankly along
the path. My hair billows
About my head
And I feel like a fish
Caught in a net.

The hooked stem of the maple leaf snags
upon a sunny tress of hair.
As the breeze utters a hushed sigh,

I pluck the leaf from my tangled web
And toss it upwards
with a flick of the wrist.

For a while I stand
with my arm extended
and fingers splayed-
the leaf suspended above my head
like a kite.

For the first time I notice
The orange stains and coffee speckles
That tarnish the maple’s leathery skin
But the wind snatches it away
and suddenly it is gone.


The maple leaf flies through the air
And abruptly drops
To the ground

pushed by volatile winds,


the leaf
shudders
scraping, sweeping-
like the croak
of a parched throat.


I glance over my shoulder;
Eyes reach skywards but
do not skim the ground where
Peaking from a nest of dead grass,
The leaf rattles its skeleton head.