Leaf Sonnet

Leaf Sonnet
Bheka Pierce

This chill October dusk, your birthday eve,
I stood beneath our birch and maple trees
To watch the falling flutter of the leaves,
And I disconsolate saw each as tragedy.
The air was still, no song of dove or thrush;
Yet fell these leaves where once we’d sung our love;
Life seemed so desolate in that autumnal hush,
Those silent souls descending from above;
Until I caught one, the game we loved to play,
To dash about and catch them dancing all,
And pocket them for luck to last us all our days,
The laughter of that comic game recalled,
And knew I then as I clutched that russet leaf
You’d come as dancing leaves to lift from me our grief.

                                                            -- 9 October 2002