Beneath the ragged edge of fall--By Carolyn Martin--United States

Beneath the ragged edge of fall,

lagging leaves stain the mossed sidewalks.

Weary, wet, intractable, they’ve lost

the lyric tint of cherry, maple, plum;

the beat of alder, oak, and elm.

They’ll fossil on concrete unless

some poet rakes them into lasting lines

like Letters spelling ‘death’ are not a death

or Nothing is forever just itself.

Previously published in Elohi Gadugi

Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, Oregon, where she gardens, writes, and plays. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in journals throughout the US and UK, and her second collection, The Way a Woman Knows, was released in 2015 (www.thewayawomanknows). Since the only poem she wrote in high school was red-penciled "extremely maudlin," she is amazed she has continued to write.