The trees were talking in foreign tongues,
The leaves had plenty to say,
As he stood deep in the golden grove
Watching the treetops sway.
A gentle breeze had caught at their breath
To carry their whispered tales,
From tree to tree in the woodland depth
While the Autumn winds prevailed.

And golden leaves lay thick at their feet
A magic carpet of death,
Fluttering down with their lives complete
At the time of their final breath.
But she lay still on a mound of leaves
And smiled at the man she loved,
While he looked up like a man who grieves
At the sway of the trees above.

‘Why is the Autumn fall so sad,
Could it be that they feel like us?
Their Summer went, and at last they’re spent
And fall from the trees like dross.’
‘They’ve had their season of love,’ she sighed,
‘While ours is still ahead,’
‘But even we,’ he had then replied,
‘Face the day when we’ll both be dead.’

He joined her down on the bed of leaves
And she kissed his lips and his brow,
‘I never think about death,’ she said,
‘But only the here and now.’
‘Don’t you listen to what’s been said,
Those fluttering leaves in the air,
They’re asking, what’s it like to be dead
In a tone of utter despair.’

‘How could you know just what they say,
They’re swaying trees in the breeze,
There isn’t a dictionary, per se,
That a man can follow with ease.’
‘Haven’t you heard the tender moan
They make, when the wind soughs through,
Their sadness echoes in every tone
And it kills me, looking at you.’

‘You have to stop, you’re frightening me,’
She said as she pulled away,
‘I thought that we came to make sweet love
On a beautful Autumn day.’
‘But what will we think when our skin is dry,
And wrinkled, so many years,
Maybe the love that we feel today
Will lie in a horse-drawn hearse.’

He looked again and he watched her age
So brittle, an Autumn leaf,
Dry and brown, he was looking down
While she stared with eyes of grief.
‘You’ve taken away our springtime, Joe,
And reached for the Autumn rain,
I only know that I have to go
And I’ll not come here again!’

David Lewis Paget