—all over the earth
little fires starting up
especially in Canada
some yellow leaves too
buttercup and dandelion yellow
dancing across the hillside
I say to my wife
“What’s the yellowest thing there is?”
“School buses”
—a thousand school buses are double
parked on 401 all at once
I suppose this is the one thing
your average level-headed Martian
or Venusian could not imagine
about Earth:
red leaves
and the way humans attach emotion
to one little patch of ground
and continually go back there
in the autumn of our lives
to deal with some of the questions
that have troubled us
on our leapfrog trip thru the Universe
for which there are really no answers
except at this tranquil season
of falling leaves
watching them a kind of jubilation
sometimes mistaken for sadness
~ from The Woman on the Shore (McClelland and Stewart Inc, 1990)
