how the leaves in autumn fall

i can hear you wailing
through the hollowed-out bones
of a dead elephant

you carry the carcasses
on your breath
of a vibrant
and cyclical death
so that it may lay
scattered

about the brush
in the fields
and carry a portrait;

a portrait that moves us
as it moves with us.
you show us the foliage
scattered

in tatters,
because

we need not always be so linear.