September

There is a tree across the street.
It stands below a street lamp the solely illuminated presence against a scrim painted with shadows.
The light from the lamp plays on her face, each peace of her dances, she is dripping with green.

Her branches bow: the embodiment of humility.
I wait: breathless as She exhales.
The wind: speaks to Her a word He said.
She knows: that time has passed since then,
that many of her sisters have been pressed with His pen,
but that His voice still echoes within.

In September:
The angle of the sun's light begins to change.
The oceans of time have evaporated into the sky,
the rain clouds of rhyme have drizzled into Her mind,
the earth beneath Her flexes and smiles: winter will be coming soon.

The cold wind begins to bite at her skin.
The green in her leaves renders itself gold.
Gravity carries Her offering back to Her source.
Naked and lithe She bears only Her soul.
Her limbs render plain against the pale gray sky.
With impossible grace she reaches out to the void.
She shows me her scars, chips and pocks in her bark.
At one with her pain, she does not cry.
For she knows that winter is the bringer of life.