Dead Leaves

The trees are bare, skeletal,
their leaves toyed with by the wind
floating free like loose pages
torn from photograph albums.

Leaves are memories that fall
to the ground, around our feet
as we go down muddy paths
leaving only footprints behind us.

Forgetting is slow, poised
always on the edge of falling.
When time grows too heavy
we begin to learn how to fall.

Like angels who no longer believe
in the possibility of flight,
we cannot expect to fall
as gracefully as the easy floating leaves.