In one short cold day the stout gusts denuded my parents’ pear trees.  The leaves were so vibrantly colorful, and seemed alive.  They swirled in little twisters as Dad and I worked to rake them up before the snow fell.  I hated to think of these leaves as just dead things sluffed off in season like flakes of dry skin.  So I didn’t.  I thought of them as beautiful and alive and holy,  like the New Testament lilies and sparrows.  And I thought they deserved a poem.

They Neither Sow Nor Reap

south winds whip and tear
at the joyful tree ornaments
all day until they twirl
and scud on the grass,
pile in corners
of color, multitudinous
vibrant reds, some greens
and yellows at the edges,
all painted uniquely
radiant and beautiful,
these trillions of leaves,
beyond sluffed scaly skin, but
the trees’ living breath,
engines of energy,
carbon sinks,
fall’s wonder-inspirers,
plucked and fallen
like lily petals
and sparrow feathers,
like the hairs of my head