Including You
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Now that autumn is in full gear
And the air fills the lungs with letting go breaths,
The time has come once again
When the slant of light catches you off guard
And you find yourself weeping
Watching the precipitation from the trees
Vesturing the ground with red and gold.
There is nothing you can do.
The allegory of the leaves and change
Has been around as long as trees themselves.
You cannot get around letting go.
And there are times letting go turns
Into a flood of things sailing away
Just beyond your reach into a day full of cidered light–
And you can only watch, or try
To look away, nevertheless parts of your life
Will be draped on the ground like so many
Torn shards of shifts and shirts
And they will be there waiting for you
To witness their being caught down in unavoidable winds
And you will be left with either becoming
Hard, like a tree whose blood slows to frozen,
Or ebullient like a flower girl at a wedding, tossing
Rose petals along the aisle where death
Sits on one side and life on the other,
And your processional of letting go distracts everyone
Momentarily from the marriage about to happen
That will leave everyone, including you,
Searching frantically inside
For the one they used to love.