When fall comes down off the shelf
The sighing souls of leaves
Once green with milk

Of early summer mornings
Slip into coats of many colors
Then give up the ghost, go off

Where there was milk, there’s dust
Each lifeless page flutters from its story
A poem no one has heard

Earthbound, blessed with only dry sound left
It rustles in the winds of change
It crackles under the feet of children

Joyously pretending to trample
Through piles of breakfast cereal
Before the milk is poured