path

Photo by author

the air isn’t crisp,
it’s stale.
the leaves that fall on the path,
brown and insipid.
becoming the mud as boots
press them into their home.

the leaves turn with a hasty goodbye.
the grass is still green,
but this path is littered with the trees’ corpses,
hugging the ground.
be careful, you might slip.

incessant gray skies forebode your fate.
there’s nowhere to hide,
except maybe behind the trunks
of the sleeping trees.

your feet may tread the path
of those before you,
but you’re here last,
and you see the faces in the mud
and the shadows in the trees.

they whisper to you,
hollow and haunting winds
that guide you down the path,
that muddy, littered path.
you follow it until it hardens,
frozen under your feet.

there’s no need to hide
when the world has gone to sleep.