"What the Last Leaf Heard Hanging Tight for Winter"
Sight is for the birds
and all those ridiculous squirrels that scurry
as if their race were ending.
But I can hear:
Acorn, eight feet right,
hits the pocket just beside the oak that fell,
buried under fifty years of leaves and loam
Milkweed silk, four feet up,
floats between the whisper and the roar
of the great northern gusts
Cocleburr, three feet left,
takes the leap of faith in passing
to the fox's fur
Huckleberry seed, six feet under,
still for now in the gut of some stray mammal
fallen and frozen
Atop the barren pine the goshawk clings
tied to his perfect vision.
There's no accounting for nuts
and squirrels.
Jays may find a seed or two
between the drifts
but I can hear
the bud that rustles just beneath my bark.
© 2008 Paul Lyons
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