House Of Dying

House Of Dying
© Surazeus
2018 06 24

When autumn sun gleams red on Texas fields
I walk the shady lanes from school to home
and kick crackling leaves which swirl in cool wind
and scent the air with the beauty of death.

I feel strange aching sadness in the air
that swirls around me in the cold orange wind
and rustles in the voices of the dead
who have only dry leaves with which to speak.

I stop beside small shining pool of water
which reflects distorted image of my face
and wonder if its sheen is secret doorway
into some strange alternate universe.

Picking up one large oak leaf, solid brown
as dry mud of the river shore at dawn,
I see written in the delicate tendrils
names of the dead in their forgotten tales.

Each one of these ten thousand fragile leaves
that fell just from the trees of my small town
contains details of one forgotten soul
who all died after living for so long.

The wind blows them all away into nowhere
before I can read even one to the end
so I kick the pile of leaves from the gutter
where they had gathered to commiserate.

Then just beneath the restless pile of leaves
I see one red apple hidden in shadow
so I retrieve it from bosom of the Earth
and smell the pungent perfume of moist soil.

Wiping the apple clean on my coat sleeve,
I bite sweet juice brewed from sunlight and rain
and taste the history of the universe
as light of the first flash glows in each atom.

Each house I pass I see behind its door
shadows of the people who must live there
but I never see the mask of their faces
though I can guess their eyes are green or blue.

Eating the apple that fell from the sun,
I listen to the leaves tell tales of people
who walked this same road before I came here
while I sense their dying in autumn wind.

Though I am now young and eager to live,
when children spring from the cells of my heart
their growing will flow from my energy
so they will walk this road when I am dead.

I want to walk up to every house door
while eating the apple of light and rain
and listen to the stories of the dying
so their spirits will live in my memories.

Kicking leaves that preserve names of the dead,
I pass the House of Dying in the twilight,
and carry into my bedroom memories
of their stories I write for thirty years.