Exploitation

They packaged up autumn in their big black plastic
To save for insulation when winter months came in
Like a deep white chasm, unsearchable and unknown.
They saw each fallen, sullen leaf
As an array of each of fall's variegated mistakes--
Rather than a drop to celebrate the ground in a confetti dance
Or to celebrate the air in independence explosions.
Each leaf fell in a surrender to the Way of life (that says
To the Wind, "You blow here," and to the blossom,
"Spring up here whenever it pleases your pretty head.")
And as the life that calls
Spring into waking and wind into a brilliant craze,
So it calls this autumn's leaves
Into a dance of death to a suicidal ending, rivaling
The suicidal dances of those long dead, of Romeos.

So we sit on the crest of a hill
Overlooking the valley surrounded by long gray limbs,
A sharp shock against the cold blue sky;
We sit and watch them package the leaves--
Not to commemorate things past as autumn lived to its end,
But to stuff in ugly black plastic
And use as insulations and comfort
In colder months.