Late Fall

           late fall

           skeleton of the tree

           on each leaf back

                Francine Porad (1929–2006)

                Plover #3, January/February 1991 (Japan)

I am drawn to the fractal nature of Francine Porad’s poem, something we’ve all seen but that Francine puts into words. The shape of the tree finds an echo in the shape of the leaf. Perhaps there are further echoes both larger and smaller as well, yet here we are, now, dwelling in the shape of the decaying leaf—aware too, perhaps, of our own mortality and the repeated cycles of living and dying.