First Blood

by Ed Hack

First Blood  by Ed Hack

Oh, look, she said, that tree’s turned red, and there
it was, leaves red with chill September’s blood,
and here and there as we went on we stared
at red and orange, signs before the flood
of autumn’s gorgeous, bloody fireworks,
as silent as stone’s silence is, out-loud
to ears that hear. This is the autumn’s quirk—
its gorgeous spectacle of change endows
the very leaves with knowledge of the death
of things, that death’s the other half of birth,
and beautiful and heart-breaking. Our breath
will stop. New life will breathe. This is the Earth
as it spins round its star that, too, must die,
as surely as we laugh and birds must fly.