Fall's leaves are now compost,
but the gutter is full of Winter's leaves-
the pages of our lives.
The browns and gold
replaced by pages of
calendar white.
Another year
and the pages fall
to mark the seasons of our lives.
Each page a day we lived.
Circled appointments,
voices lost.
Where was I on that day
now floating
in the gutter of rain and slush?
365 grave stones for a lost army of days.
Some days lettered red
for special deeds now indistinguishable
from the rest rest.
The new leaves of a new year,
an orderly array of promise
to repeat the annual task.
Time will continue and next year
the paper leaves will again fall.
Old leaves are not to be retrieved
save a few to make
a memory collage.
Leaves of my life at this moment
on the razor's edge
of past and future.