This is not enough.
Grass, and horse chestnuts,
purple-leaved plums
and the maples whose names I do not know.
They are lovely, their leaves shaken off by last night’s wind,
but behind their nakedness is the lined gray pavement,
the dense, impermeable skin,
where my footsteps are visitors.
At night I look for the stars, but instead I find a blotched sheet of paper,
a chalkboard,
something that has been erased and left dusty with residue.
The wind here
smells of roadside oil,
of cigarettes and decaying apples,
and the smoke of a neighbor’s fire.
The leaves fall.
I believe they are the one true thing.
Underneath them is the soil.
Leave a Reply