The leaves of the Maple
have fallen by now.
All but the few
still linger, somehow.

Glory! in colors –
green, red and orange!
I feel I should know them;
I don’t, they are foreign.

And something as strange
as leaves from a tree:
A metaphor, Maple,
leaves, memory.

I knew them only
as they would know me,
And those who have fallen,
Are long gone by now;

But still I remember
as strangers, somehow:
Friends in the spate
of the short here-and-now.

So much for the Maple,
as metaphors be;
and leaves that are peopled
by metaphor trees.

©2014, Marvin Welborn
11 Nov 2014. Revised 20 Dec 2014.