Autumn by Christine Stevens with apologies to Mary Oliver

I wanted to calculate

the number of leaves per minute

that were falling from

my blazing maple.

I wanted to measure the moment when

these flame filled shade givers

release their tenuous link

to the greater good

and

float

waft

plunge

to an indifferent lawn,

joining a battlefield of dried corpses,

the papery remains of their compatriots.

I wanted to count the ways my own life

has detached from itself and descended

into a void

not knowing what lay at the bottom

or if there even was one.

But mostly,

I wanted to know

how many goddamned leaves

I was going to have to

rake up

on a windy Saturday in late October.

It was 6.

Per minute.

You do the math.