Nature at one time beckoned me
In the blowing of its leaves
Yet treated with little respect
Out of neglect will leave you be

Roots that burrow into the earth
Trunks wide like the universe
Branches scale in height and breadth
It spawns an unending curse

A curse that leaves man to his own
Never again to call nature home
Given the chance and man blew it
Would things be different had he known

Now nature’s unmoved by man’s suffering
Man’s woes are his own doing
When on the edge of extinction all’s teetering
Stoic and indifferent, nature will see to man’s ending

I sit on one side of a splintered park bench,
its weathered plaque telling me
Harold Finch loved this spot
before dying.

My finger traces
my watch's sharp cracked crystal.
Scratches layered on scratches,
hard to tell if it's three o'clock or four.

Horns blare,
and sirens wail,
the city pushing through.

An ant scales my shoe-mountain.
This day's Everest.
His tiny legs a blur of purpose,
unaware of the danger that awaits.

Across the path,
a neglected hollow metal general
reigns over his dry, rusty fountain,
pigeons crowning him white.

Gumballs lurk in the lawn,
tiny maces waiting for tender feet.
Once, one got me.
I was seven.
My soda and tears
staining the soil brown.
Mother's embrace saying,
it's okay, it's okay.

Grass offers itself
to all that pass.
Two lovers lie back,
and melt into its willing green.

My foot pins and needles.
I shift against the hard bench.
Everest sits empty.

A lone bee zigzags past my shoulder,
hunting flowers
summer promised
but autumn stole.

Above, a hawk circles,
a black speck drifting
in empty blue.

Below, a squirrel stashes acorns
for a winter it will never see.

And a single red leaf
falls upward
into the blue,
unaware it is dying...

But I see
its shadow dancing.

I'm all too conscious of the change,
nothing strange, and nothing never felt before
not a shock,
perhaps the clicking of a lock
the subtle closing of a door,
a key has turned,
that well worn latch is dropped once more,
on what is done, a green and fertile time,
I hear the chimes,
which ring and sing a tune I know full well,
a tolling bell
for autumn

My mom told me:
when you walk through sorrow,
do not fear the shadows
they are only the night’s way
of teaching you the stars.
you are not just a child of mine,
you are a child of the universe
born from fire,
shaped by silence,
destined for infinity.
And when I asked her,
“what is the meaning of all this?”
she smiled,
and said:
to live is to remember
that you are more than yourself,
that the cosmos speaks in your breath,
and every goodbye
is the seed of another hello.

A flower in the wind, has no control,
an arbitrary victim
without determined vision as it blows from side to side,
it has no views about the matter
when it sees its beauty shattered
into petals that are scattered far and wide