October

The oaks have thinned since we last spoke,

and I’m shedding the weight of you from my mind

like the willow tree goes bare in winter.

There is a lightness in living for myself,

yet I shouldered proudly that responsibility

of sharing all things with another,

of stringing together our foliage

into a patchwork of auburns and oranges

until they shivered in the cold draft and shrunk to gray.

It’s a gradual death of the willow tree, nonetheless,

and I am mourning the loss of half a life.

I am untangling the thread that fastened me to you,

yanking apart our lives in a matter of days.

Night comes quickly in a velvet blanket

and the bluebirds cease their song,

but there is joy at the end of this snow-capped road

where my dreams do not rest upon another's

and the air is sweeter in solitude.

Autumn was a sacred time now passed;

so I rest in dissonance, anticipating resolution,

awaiting winter’s new glories.

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