The first poem in a series of four which I wrote in between 2010 and 2013, whilst I was at university.
I trudge along the street, my neck chilled by solid breath.
I hear shudders in the bushes. ‘O how we dread our death!’
They lament with rustling wails, ‘We were green but yesterday,
Today malady shakes us off, tomorrow we decay.’
I pass a helpless Mexican Wave, their dancers clad in gold.
Beneath my boots they soon will crackle, ugly, brown and cold.
The freshly fallen roll pass me to race from pending doom.
Unbeknown to them the breeze shall guide them to their tomb.
Or perhaps they know the call; they just need that one last chance
To live for one more moment in a flaming Autumn dance.
Such a scene I see so sinister and sanguine:
The leaves against my feet and me against the wind.
Rachael Lum 