Sugar stained

Sugar stained

The despair I felt toward the end of summer
that leaves would fall before I learned the names--

do I feel it still? It is handy learning to look down
for cones, for small twigs a bird or squirrel breaks free,

and for the leaves. When hearts stop pumping
green colors to brown and sugars stained red

and orange emerge. How many lobes?
How sharply pointed? It is handy to look

right in front of you. Is the bark deeply rutted
or peeling like paper or is it scarred

in angled steps that walk your eyes up
through an empty crown to see that they are not gone.