1999

I lay on the ground
atop a cascade of autumn leaves
discarded by the trees as if for my benefit

I was fully grown and greened
hardly thinking I would be
as the oak that had lost her colors
even less the rotten trunk
with no leaves left to drop

Is that what it means to be young?
Must a youth think naught
of age and mortality
or worse, fear it?

Is the only promise found
in yards and yards of slack
or are there still knots to cling to
in the last foot of rope?