October, Finally

The trees have been practicing

this performance all year—

the slow rehearsal of green

giving way to amber,

amber to rust,

rust to the bare confession

of branches.

I drive the same road

I drove last autumn

and the one before that.

The trees don't remember me.

They do it anyway:

this spectacular, annual

act of letting go,

as if to say:

it is possible

to be most beautiful

right at the end.