Autumn by Mahmoudreza Shirinsokhan. https://tinyurl.com/ycye6d86

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Poetry

Transition of the Leaves

it is evening
the brass dinner bell has already been rung
and my mother has brought out the porcelain
embossed bounty she promised me.

the fireflies lay dying
and in their stead, have christened nights like these.

where I walked as a young man beneath the harvest moon
and asked so earnestly
how the leaves
could change their shade
again and again
knowing they would be cast off by the branches.

it is morning now.

and i wait again and again
for the piles to go up in flames
or swirl into whirlwinds of detritus and false promises.

stubborn, oh so stubborn.

crying out with a solemn whisper, and sweet dysphoria.
because the forest floor is home,
and there is love in the decay.

but waiting, again and again
for next season, always next season.

to change shade and not be cast off.

 

Life Abundant In the Garden of Ms. Ziegler

i used to garden for ms. ziegler
and on the brightest sunny days
she would come out of her weary screen door
and say, “keep digging, son.”

but she would stand to watch me
and make me avoid a thousand different spots

where she had buried her husband and her dog
the dust bowl
the depression
spring days long since forgotten
and many farm kids
just like me.

along with a million other things that you can really only find to love
in 92 years of hard living.

how wonderful a thing it must be
to have so many plots of ground

to never dig up.