Prickles the Gust

“How-do-you-do?” the seminal leaves of Autumn wave. “When would you like to fly away?” prickles the gust. Maternal-oak holds on tight as one birdy takes flight. The gust will have none of this ballyhoo, knowing what he must do, calls for fingernails-on-chalkboard rain, for the bad-wolf-wind, for lightning, insane. “Toodle-loo,” says each spiderling-leaf, parachuting to earth. They make such a scene; whirligig and wandering, each drenched in colloquial colors, memorable, forsaken. Each one in turn catches a potential eye even as it lands in puddles, whirling and twirling, a final splash. They mourn as blends of orange, yellow and red bleed into the stream. Undignified, decomposing, going under, all poetry spent, dwarfing and drifting; washed away down the drain. Spring regeneration haphazardly avoids loose-leaf goosebumps.