The Leaves, Dreaming It Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

october soon, you thought;
throwing it all again
into such an acute soft focus.

and the firecracker leaves
exploding and the air
rich with the golden lost,

the rubies flung suddenly
at our feet in heaps.
who are we to be walking through

the jeweled leaves; already their
countdown has started
and watercoloured intensively

the skies direct convincingly
the azure arrows through the heart.

will they funnel up from the ground,
the leaves, imploringly, under some
tawny spell or

prayer of the pearl grey doves

as though the trees. the trees
were still with them, like a ghosting love;
how can we sail apart? they

sing, flying back to the branches
that released them.
and I could cry, as if I were

still a little girl to see them whirling,
trying to get back-
the twigs now, one by one unlit

and cannot be lit again.

is it their light is going backwards
and flickering so that you almost envision:
saints in the afternoon?

or will this be forwarded, late or soon,
to winter's as yet, unknown address where
we will be salvaged

asked the candid,
raveling, raveled the cherished
till they disappeared

into the furnace of the years.

and it's only the leaves dreaming it
in the upward gusts of wind
or we, who were stranded for so long.

or me, at the beginning again
in the roundelay of this song.

mary angela douglas 20 september 2017