The sound of wooden rake scratching concrete. <br />walk nearer - rustle of dry leaves. <br /> <br />This, the beginning of a Japanese haiku <br />or maybe a Japanese film - <br />dry sound first, then rake, then leaves, then man - <br />that evokes autumn <br />too near the heart <br />to need a title <br /> <br />the sound stops. silence. man leans on rake. <br />then match strikes, there's almost yes an echo <br />from the dry leaves not yet fallen from the trees <br />in the forest all around. <br /> <br />then the first tickle in the nostrils <br />of burning leaves which <br />the two-year old scrunching through the trees <br />hand in hand with older sister <br />will remember all his life <br />like the silence between <br />two lines of a haiku or <br />the silence of the moment when the seasons turn. <br /> <br />and who can say <br />what the golden-orange-yellow-brown trees <br />slowly stripping in a rustle as of silken nightgown <br />to the tune of, more a whisper than a breeze - <br />what the trees feel <br />as the incense of their, their, burning leaves <br />steals like a last caress <br />for each such faithful <br />lover?<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0018-man-raking-leaves-re-jim-morrison-lyric/
