Poem: 'My Eighteenth Autumn '

 by Saffron Irons

The leaves fall as they shed their skins of summer, 

But before they do, they change their colour,

A warning sign, or rather, a final display of existence, 

Before slowing to rest,

Ready to begin again. 

I follow suit, each autumn.

Leaving behind that which no longer serves,

Until I, too, am like the trees,

Naked and vulnerable,

To whatever this year may bring.

How will this year dress me?

Will I be clothed in green and blue,

A calm that fills my veins?

Or will my skin turn red like fire, 

As I slowly go insane?

It is my eighteenth autumn.

It is familiar, this ritual, I have seen it seventeen times,

And yet, each year it is different,

With the changing of my heart,

And with the changing of my mind.

So much has changed since my seventeenth autumn,

When I collected those brown leaves. 

People have come, 

And others have gone,

And we have laughed,

And they have left, 

And I have cried, 

And I have healed, 

And I have grown, 

And I have found myself,

But the leaves, this autumn, are still brown