Lesson

After the party
    the trees reveal
        their elegant bones.
        
When winds blow
    they flirt, naked
        branches touching.
        
The hills unveiled
    show off their hips,
        put on new clothes.
        
Now they're professors
    in faded purple corduroy
        with conifer elbow patches.
        
They sit zazen
    and teach stillness.
        How to love what comes
        
and what goes.
    How to appreciate
        colors now muted

and light diffuse
    soft as wet leaves
        cushioning every step.
        
Bless what's fallen
    gracefully yielding
        to disintegration.

This poem began its life as the prose post Once the leaves fall, which I posted yesterday.