![Photo of autumn leaves by Pixabay photographer Tante Tati](http://smallestleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Walk-on-an-Advent-Afternoon-Leaves-300x300.jpg)
A poem in Free Verse
As the trees repaper themselves
in reds, golds, purples, I wish
to slow the folding of these days.
As certain as the falling of the leaves
is this turning, this changing of the year.
Autumn’s symphony concludes to the finale
of singing wind and beating wings,
the raucous chorus of voyaging blackbirds,
the honking of wild geese
making their way into the new year.
Now is the harvest season, the time for gathering.
One last chance to collect what I have sown,
what I have tended, what I have toiled for
these fleeting months. I shiver in the chill
of the afternoon and in the knowledge
that time is passing, slipping through my grasp.
Yet there is joy in the truth of winter light, there is
hope in the promise of the arrival of one more spring.
– Lisa
Selected from Smallest Leaf: A Collection of Poetry. Available for purchase at the online store of smallestleaf.com.
![](http://smallestleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/lisa-2.png)