dryad's recall

I had forgotten the smell of dying leaves...

I had forgotten until my feet passed over the crumpled brown fallouts, bruising out the smell.

I had forgotten how long this had lain in me like winter.

I have been waiting many days for that smell to come back to me;

I have been watching for the change of color, the bite of air, for many days.

I had forgotten how I wish to shed my leaves, to burn out like a candle in an old forest.

It is my home, the dying in damp brown hollows like familiar haunting hands,

I have been waiting all the burning summer to die so cool and dark.

And every nymph remembers the Golden Ages; I recall the Grey-and-Brown.

I had forgotten leaf mold streaked down my arms, damp dark leaves against my neck.

The cold, dry sun spreads it's light out;

this is the man I will lie down with.