Endless Saturday Afternoons – Verse Us (Poems by Me)

Crimson Japanese maple leaf

Fallen; huddled

amongst siblings over their mother’s roots.

Fallen suddenly

As though timed to the moon or the length of the day.

Or the stride of something ancient.

It’s not like they died.

Dutiful children,

warming her roots for the winter.

Dutiful children,

Even as they wither,

Wither away from the likeness of youth,

And those last bold vibrant hues.

I was drawn

to pick this one;

Carry it along for a while at the end of my meditation.

I was drawn

to pick this corpse

Cut off from the sap of her mother.

Letting go

decrementing life?

The tree; or some particular vein or stomata?

Letting go

I could not add

or subtract anything in my mind

Letting go

I could not see

life’s passing in this leaf.

So I set her on the shrine

And moved on.

– Endless Saturday Afternoons (Andrew Furst)

The image is from Hans Hofmann’s Black Demon, 1944. (Addison Gallery of American Art)

Verse Us - Poems I write: haiku, senryu, mesostics, free verse, random word constructions, I might even use rhyme or meter once and a while.

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The post Endless Saturday Afternoons – Verse Us (Poems by Me) written by Andrew Furst appeared on Andrew Furst.