If books contain leaves

Then libraries are huge forests

Filled with story trees

If I shed my leaves

Could I sleep through the winter

And respawn in spring?

Brambles overrun these

Crooked hedgerows, silently

Winter overcomes me

The joy of summer

Worn away by rain and ice

Hollow hearts echo

Is it delusion

To go on trying, without

Success or promise?

Cover me over

Freeze me from the outside in

Can I turn to stone?

Battered, beaten bare

By bracing gales, bent, broken

Bleak branches barren

Each season’s magic

Somehow fragile and fleeting

Light shining through leaves

Rise up and flee from

The hollow voice of scarecrows

Rattling our skull

If I too should fall

Or curl up into a ball

This is the long haul

Look inside yourself

What’s beneath that fragile shell?

Don’t let the wind win

Crows tear quiet clouds

With cunning cries that echo

Of concealed crimes

Frost fans final flames

‘Fore falling fellow fireleaves

Freely furnish floors

Sun gilt limbs glimmer

Holding our breath in their sway

Throat stuck words in clay

Behind this window

Truth lies, answering questions

That hide deep inside

Gentle clouds hang low

Sweeping over folded brows

Seek the ones I missed

The pendulum creep

Darkness drives the season seep

Dropping off to sleep

Wind stripped limbs sway low

Leaving last year’s load strewn through

Crenellated fields

Mottled night light hangs

Tween half life and half bright lay

My shadow still grey

As seas come from rain

And pure silver from a flame

Like seasons I change

Do you want to reach

The summit, the highest peaks

Or languish below?

So the colours fade

Autumn bronze to winter grey

We fall into shade