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nature sketch

By David Harris Ebenbach

fooled by two cold days
the trees across the street
have already gone over to harvest brown
ready to be pared to basics
to let their cupped hands be plucked and blown loose
between the row houses
and I wonder at the retreat
and abandonment
and I think about what we are like
in the early admonitions of winter
giving up
our furthest extremities
our greenest flourishes
our most hopeful veined brushings against the sky
and then I wonder
how many of us are already
ten winters deep into winter
and how many
have yet a leaf bright enough
to draw from and drain
and release