Watching Falling Leaves While Drinking Coffee in My Car by Karen Warinsky

Can’t get enough
of the crazy colors,
the deep hues
that suddenly shock
to pale and neon yellows and greens,
all that amber and peach litterfall
dead quiet on the ground
waiting to mulch;
absorb the silent lesson.

But I hadn’t been out all day
so, drove to the bank, got gas,
then the drive-through for
coffee and (yes) a donut.
Went to a favorite parking lot near a brook
where the trees are screaming
in orange, pink, maroon,
refusing to go quietly,
and watched one by one
the abscission,
the cutting off as the branches pinch closed,
the trees firmly deciding
they will live another year,
pushing out what’s done,
like an expired friendship,
a dead love.

 

Karen Warinsky  has published in various anthologies and literary magazines including the 2019 Mizmor Anthology.   She is the author of Gold in Autumn (2020), Sunrise Ruby (2022),  and is a previous finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest. She loves to kayak and organize poetry readings.