Poem for the day

Burning Leaves
A Sestina

Tattered pieces of fire whirl in the air
as each new breeze causes more to fall.
They coat the grass with flames of orange and gold,
crackling as passing feet move across the ground.
Fiery heralds of the coming cold
witness as the last spark of summer leaves.

Laughing students kick through the leaves
as their breaths form faint clouds in the air.
They hurry to get out of the cold:
hurry in to take off coats and scarves. The fall
is short; already frost coats the chilly ground,
lining with silver the leafy gold.

The rising sun is liquid gold
to the dusky yellow of the leaves
that lies with the deep reds on the ground.
What had been bright sparks in the air
wait, marked as martyrs of the fall,
all to be sacrificed to the cold.

The sparks soon fade in the cold
rain that washes out the bright gold.
The crackling fires are extinguished and fall
into sodden heaps, limp drifts of dead leaves
that wait to dry and burn again. The crisp autumn air
is full of the smoky smell of tannin, rising from the ground.

The faded colors that cover the ground
soon are covered in turn by the snow’s cold,
snowflakes floating like the souls of leaves in the air.
White and silver outlast the faded gold
and erase from the world the leaves,
the markers of the dying year’s fall.

Half a year from their first fall,
the fallen sparks burn once more on the ground.
The colors of fire return to take the leaves
and signal the end of the cold.
Bright reds and oranges with ghostly gold
Flicker as their smoky souls rise into the air.

In fall, when the trees lose their fiery coats to the cold,
letting the flames coat the ground in red and gold,
the fading leaves wait to burn again in spring, to return to the air.