A Man Amid Falling Leaves Poem by Denis Mair
A Man Amid Falling Leaves
(for James Koehnline's artwork titled 'The Fall is Near')
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Watching leaves in fall, we know our time is passing...
leaf after leaf they notch the increments of our fleeting states...
chlorophyll breaks down, and xanthophyll takes over;
still soaking up energy from light, but less efficiently;
a sunscreen of red-yellow remains, doing the needful,
to eke out a little more life, until in turn replaced by tannin,
giving time to withdraw magnesium from green pigment into the phloem,
ready to be added to next spring's sap, for nourishment of new leaves...
all of this has a beautiful relevance to our yellowing eyes...
a fleeting light gatherer is riding down the wind,
plunging headlong into the tunnel of time...
a man who sprouted the green leaves of youthful doings
now surrenders to fall, amid leaves that fell earlier...
the time for holding golden leaves high is over,
but pangs of transience will go down with them greenly.
Took me ages to find your poem, Denis. Worth the search as it's beautiful....
Such a wonderful poem about fall.Like golden leaves falling away and nourishing new life, our time also flies and ultimately we become yellow leaves of nature
Of course we hear and see stories of death and they soak in and become assumptions, . But most inward of all is our fear of small loneliness makes us fear death's big loneliness.
I think it is like appetite: there are many visceral clues and clocks that tell us the body has a dark shadow body growing in it.
Galina's comment did not show up. She questioned how people know their time will end. Do they feel it internally, or from commonly accepted knowledge.
I wonder how people determine that their time is running out. Is this really some kind of inner knowledge, or just a suggestion caused by the usual course of things around?
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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7/25/2025 5:20:08 AM # 1.0.0
A wonderful depiction of fall with fresh and innovative imagery.