The Black Air of Childhood Gone

Sometimes we wept
to see the falling leaves.
Sometimes we laughed.
Sometimes we laughed
until we wept.
Sometimes a child
(and sometimes it was us)
long ago would hide himself in leaves
and lie quite still.
Sometimes still as death.

Sometimes an old man
would rake.
And slowly he would rake, as counting years,
and raking, leaves would gather into piles
and dark would fall, all else grown huddle-cold.
And darkness rose in flames of many fires
and smoke rose high in grim and twisting columns
and cinders rode the moving air.
And black, and black, like snow.
Sometimes we wept.

-- Stephen K. Roney