She holds open
translucent bags
as I heave
loads of coloured
leaves
into their crinkled,
plastic mouths
like a backhoe
dropping dirt
into a pit.
“The Stasi
took my father
into the night,”
she firmly sighs.
“I sent letters
to the prison
but I never heard
a word.”
I note golden,
scarlet foliage,
fallen
like unpicked apples.
Some have twisting
worms, limp
as flimsy laces
on my loosely-knotted
shoes.
She says “mother
stays in sackcloth,
with a veil
that never lifts
in public places.”
November’s
biting wind
scatters half
our work away,
our faces
turning numb
in waning light.
Autumn
Haiku
Northern gust
rips leaves off limbs
Colours afloat in air
Tanka
Our daughter
races,
attempting to catch the birds.
If she had the wings
of a pigeon, she’d leave us,
dropping occasional notes.
Fire is our
future,
we learned in astrophysics.
Dharma says detach:
the sun to swell and swallow,
with even the ashes gone.
