paul weinman
Fall of Silence
There are no fireflies
to follow in the fall.
If you listen,
you may hear several leaves
lightly settle in the night.
Or see a cloud more crisply
as it changes in shapes of gray and white.
What leads you into the late woods
are not mysterious dots of light,
but the hollow sounds of the dead
things on the cooling ground.
Those soundes are almost echoes
of how you know you will be heard.
They are the same as your fatheršs
long ago voice.
And your mother when she touched
her two wrinked hands together.
Those sounds.
There are no fireflies
to follow in the fall,
only your own footsteps
alone into the night.
Even the frogs are silent.
