Colors

October wind sweeps colors of the day
In a mini tornado, ravaging
The hospital parking lot

Days like this remind me
Of evening air years ago
When all of us kids would take that leap

Into piles of bright corpses, freshly raked
And laugh and play in the masses
Of reds and oranges and yellows

Along with the rare greens
Making Christmas with the rest
A sacrifice to what comes after

And I think, even then,
All of us knew we’d end up
As part of the pile

Eventually, maybe
Seventy, fifty, twenty years onward
I’d end up in the same bed

Where both my grandparents, demented,
Kissed the soul of fall and
Greeted the coming cold

In front of my childhood eyes
As I sit here, the feel of winter
Approaching chills my summer bones

In a car in the hospital parking lot
My heart ravaged by a mini tornado
Of October wind sweeping colors of decay