trust fall

[fightngwrmwood]

The first thing to go is the leaves on the oak in the back.
This year she is three,
singing Psalm 1A with gusto.
She is six and no one can guess she spied
with her little eye
the rims on the stroller wheels.
(Who knew strollers had wheels anyway?)
He is nine and wants a laser security system
for his bedroom because of his sisters.
He believes I can teach him to build it.

The first thing to go was the leaves on the oak in the back.
Last year
where the concrete was
where I had heaved a mallet
to see it crack
hit again to deepen the break
with everything that was in me -
grief, failure, loss
poured out, broke up, what was impossibly hard
and was left in the bin or around the garden
at the end of the day.
The work made me the best kind of tired
and sleep was sweet again.

The first thing to go was the leaves on the oak in the back.
At a house not yet on the market because their dad had died 3 months before.
All five of them
now waiting, now watching,
now grown, now grieving.
Taking turns to be recognized.
To turn off the stove.
Their mom was sick and the leaves and the silence settled around her -
except sometimes, when they would gather into piles
in her memory and the piles would explode
with squeals of delight from an uncovered child
from decades passed.

Five decades and the first thing to go had been the leaves on the oak in the back.
yet
The first thing to go in my perception of fall -
what's predictable fell to steadfast
unchanging fell to dynamic
disappointment fell to hope
and

The first thing to go will be the leaves on the oak in the back -
and the best things are next.