Straggler

Straggler

The world grows cold
and the days are short,
my skin, freeze-dried,
discoloured, veins brown rivers
upon the dying land.
So thin am I become,
in parts transparency
is all that’s left, a whisper
of mortality and weariness,
my final song so fitting
to intertwine with these last days
as life slips from the grasp
of the fading year.
The wind is empty now,
freed from the multitude
of bright summer voices,
the departed comrades
of our heyday, now silent
memories that we thought forever.
Gone from the branch
and I, distracted and abandoned,
still learning to let go.


Line Count: 22
Free Verse
For The Daily Poem, July 27 2020. Third in Shadows and Light Poetry Contest, Round 98
Prompt: Write a poem about Autumn from the viewpoint of the last leaf on the tree.