Deck’s all but empty
There’s a chill in the air
As dancing clouds above
Float ghostly images
To nature’s blues
No longer here
Those hibernating souls
With haunting voices
Of shivering warmth
Stir thoughts of fate
Irreversibly linked
To a winter of old age

There’s no antidote
For the inevitable
Fallen leaves
Of composts on graves
With winter repasts
Delayed ‘til spring
When Nature’s birthplace
For the life cycle reprise
Is a living continuum
Where hope resides
And the fallen leaf
Never really dies.