Fall Room Dance
 
So many falls, so many leaves
turning, spinning
down.
A jack-o’lantern-colored bus
stenciled School stops,
and I back away.
Gotta run
off a rape
I believe I caused.
Believe not a rape,
but a fall
from grace.
Fall for a man just happened
to have the lashes of a father
gone missing.
Yet I pause to leap in leaves
and glory in all the shades
they doll in, as if on their way
to a ball.
How they dance!
I even love that a lot of them smell
of mildew.  School went sour,
yet I still stir in chalk
and 3-ring paper
that blinds.  A sparkling
yellow Ticonderoga
number 2, sharp
as the knife
I feel in
secret.
How fast I run!  How long I walk!
Not once do I have to pause
to save breath.  Between
the running and the walking
and the green and the gold
that fall
at
my
feet,
‘what pain?’
 
Smoke from a bonfire is
sweetening dusk.
Sad doesn’t feel
bad.  A shower is tickling
laughs out of leaves.
that were mad
at  trees for not caring;
now they are glad
they hung on
so long.  Glue themselves
to the ground, content
for a while to watch, then
dance.
 
Dance, dammit, dance!

(c) Phyllis Jean Green,  2006

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED