Poetry

Leafing

Tints of autumn flutter to the ground.

It’s the perennial season of loss.

Time is supposed to conquer all,

yet grief has more power.

This cool season of loss

repeats like a nightmare—

grief has larcenous power

like a tree’s reach thick and tall

looming outside your window, a nightmare

where even the innocent are not safe

from the thick reach

breaking the paned glass.

Not even the innocent are safe,

though, who is really innocent?

Inside, we are all broken

fragments we hold together to make whole.

None of us are innocent.

We try to conquer time,

to hold it at bay and pretend we are whole.

Yet it always loosens our grip and we fall to the ground.

Copyright 2013 Gabriella M. Belfiglio