Autumn: Delicate Violence

Leaves transition from green to red, orange, then dead brown. 

One tiny part of a tree snaps from a branch and flutters delicately to the ground, to be  blown on a breeze, tumbled across grass, rocks and streams, along roadways, or raked into piles to be composted or burned.  

Leaves:  Ignored reminders of a season of warmth.  A season of life.  A season of lovers moving with nature from delicate summer breezes into the biting cold of violent winter winds. 

Like lovers in transition, a leaf of gold comes to rest on the forest floor with the hushed sound of delicate violence. 

Introduction to the chapbook "Delicate Violence",  © 2006 by R. Burnett Baker.

Photo © 2006 by R. Burnett Baker.  

Photo taken in 2006 by R. Baker in

 Highland Park, Rochester, NY.

_________________________________

too quickly 

too quickly, 

we say, 

summer has passed

but the sun 

rises and sets 

on schedule. 

Photo and poem © 2008 by R. Burnett Baker 

Photo taken by R. Baker in Highland Park, Rochester, NY, 2008.