"The trees have already begun to senesce"
my professor says, as she indicates
the oak whose leaves have been colored to dirt.
And a chord is struck in me,
for without her definition
I know what it is to senesce.
This is what it is to shed my leaves,
to watch their fingers wither and release
my autumn comes crisp
and crunches under rubber soles,
it feels like a barren womb.
All I give birth to is empty spaces
between fingers of dusk and
silhouettes of dark against light.
Crookedness is my legacy, and exposure is my blight.
And yet if I am like those dying branches
then I too must come awake again.
To senesce is to die, yet only for a time
spring is ahead, and she is waiting.
And I will follow,
follow that thought like deer prints in the snow,
like the sparrow's straining song,
like green blades lifting their arms,
like the smell of the earth swallowing the rain,
like there is a time when death will not call my name so sweetly
that I choose the dream over waking.
That I too will shed my ice
and become heavy with the weight
of fragrant flowers.