Fall Leaves Fall
by Emily Brontë
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Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

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the summer visage long faded from caramel,
to a bastardized version of ugly dirt brown,
the streets empty of traffic and the silence
is a sadder shade of lesser peace, the vibrancy
given way to sharper clearer long division disagreement

my worrisome peaks when the trees
denuded, less shelter than ever.
no cover offered, we stand divided,
visible lines of demarcation,
unable to hide, from each other,
unable to hide, from our selves,
the briefer day transits quicker
into night’s decay, and the words
we utter and state,, hollow sounded,
have no echo ability, no resounding,
and we all grow silenced, partly in
shame, partly because partisan words
bring no gain, or the satisfaction of a
response that makes us say ah ha! you see!

the leaves crumble breneath tired treads
and forested footsteps long ago forgotten,
beige dust that the wind swirls, delighted
by its new power to spread its grounded
memories of human interference into
a coverlet of dust

this fallen solitude hurts me, for it is in
opposition to the joy gay screams of children
in to water running, the oohs and ahs, of freedom’s fireworks  gloried colors proclaiming we are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”

All those books they made us read,
The smelly yellow-pagers
That weighed as heavy as the guilt
We felt as "zombie teenagers";

Do we remember anything?
The names of the main characters,
Or maybe, who died in the end--
Or the ones who were in pictures?

It wasn't that we hated books--
We didn't understand them;
Before the teacher's spiritless voice
Made us slowly condemn them.

"Memorize the vocab words,
And don't forget the spelling!"
Was that the point of literature?
But definitions aren't compelling.

So all those hours in English Lit,
The days spent reading Steinbeck,
Were soured by the grouchy face
Always looming over my desk.

I always wished someone would say,
"This isn't boring, here's why:"
But I was told to shut up and read
When sometimes I wanted to cry:

"I hate this story! Nobody's happy!
And everyone's messed up!
It doesn't make sense to force it on us
When we're already stressed out."

But we had to read it, because they had to read it
When they were young in school.
This book had an impact in history:
So now, reading it is a rule.

So if it's a must, that's fine, then.
But...why don't we make it fun?
Or talk about the psychology
And learn something when we're done?

A book can't be everyone's favorite.
We're all different people inside.
But please try to make us all interested
With wisdom only you can provide.