In the years to come they will say, <br />“They fell like the leaves <br />In the autumn of nineteen thirty-nine.” <br />November has come to the forest, <br />To the meadows where we picked the cyclamen. <br />The year fades with the white frost <br />On the brown sedge in the hazy meadows, <br />Where the deer tracks were black in the morning. <br />Ice forms in the shadows; <br />Disheveled maples hang over the water; <br />Deep gold sunlight glistens on the shrunken stream. <br />Somnolent trout move through pillars of brown and gold. <br />The yellow maple leaves eddy above them, <br />The glittering leaves of the cottonwood, <br />The olive, velvety alder leaves, <br />The scarlet dogwood leaves, <br />Most poignant of all. <br /> <br />In the afternoon thin blades of cloud <br />Move over the mountains; <br />The storm clouds follow them; <br />Fine rain falls without wind. <br />The forest is filled with wet resonant silence. <br />When the rain pauses the clouds <br />Cling to the cliffs and the waterfalls. <br />In the evening the wind changes; <br />Snow falls in the sunset. <br />We stand in the snowy twilight <br />And watch the moon rise in a breach of cloud. <br />Between the black pines lie narrow bands of moonlight, <br />Glimmering with floating snow. <br />An owl cries in the sifting darkness. <br />The moon has a sheen like a glacier.<br /><br />Kenneth Rexroth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/falling-leaves-and-early-snow/
