it proper chucked it down last night & i appear to be less preoccupied with the japanese maples & the show that they put on around this time | before dropping their magenta loads onto lawns that have fully recovered their plushness since the unseasonal aridity of the past summer | i’m usually a sucker for the deciduous soundings of that event that i have heard called the change | it could be due to the dying poet at the open mic who condemned autumn for its treachery | that it was just death showing up again in a garish frock | & there has been a death of something within me | call it my ambition or the urge to grasp for that specific moment when it all works out | the point where the credits roll on all those PG comedies I watched on VHS in the 80s | it’s hard to say what exists in the space it once filled | not some soul-sapping opposite of hope but rather the amniotic ether that hope & hopelessness float within | & if i regret anything it is that i got a little bit too good at seeing those magenta leaves within the tree at any time of year | from root to bud to unfurling to bareness | & miss the delight & surprise that the sight of those leaves sparked within me | & the tingle of sadness they always ferment into