The most noticeable sign of the new season is the budding of flowers and leaves on trees. They are not all fully green yet. The trees on the bike train on my way to campus have not totally recovered their leaves, but from the grass to a few branches, you can see new signs of life coming forth.
It’s just the rustling leaves on the ground – the gentle breeze
that blows. It’s the glow of lights around the evening trees.
It’s the smiles in her joyful eyes, the love that I see around.
It’s the warm nudge, a subtle touch of flesh, or a gentle sound.
I felt it tonight, within hopes on the faces I see wherever I look.
Graceful laughs under branches, and falling rain around the brook.
I smell it in the cold night air, brown like the leaves of autumn’s rust
I touch it in hugs of fleece, wondrous wool, fabric mufflers of trust.
It’s in the sound of music, softened in bits of sweet tingling taste.
It’s in the rustling of leaves on the ground – a season of deathly waste.
It’s America tonight, Midwest, in the folds of a gradually freezing host:
I stand with words as shield, the less squelching shawls I know the most.