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  1. COUNTING LEAVES

    Mornings wake up with a start here.
    From where I find myself brushing up
    on counting in Chinese, I sip my tea
    as often as a leaf falls, (no abacus handy).
    A bright swath of cerulean sky revs up
    a quick day—the scurrying of lorries
    can only mean winter’s stocking is here.

    Happens everytime. Mourning at high
    noon, 9/11 families roar back home
    to take up where they left off: Cut wood
    for fireplaces, jar jam for the fall, clean
    the heater filters, deliver the ripened
    fruit to the food terminal, take the train
    to the bursting schools, harangue nerds
    to mind the socio-political situation,
    lash out at rabid pols and sleepy solons
    to pass an unemployment solution,
    maybe consider filing the divorce papers.

    A constipatedly harrassed truck driver
    squeezes an impolite blare from his horn,
    yells murder at school bus drivers doing
    sixty, sticks his lizard-like tongue at kids
    chanting back: Up yours, up yours! Gay!
    Highways shape the taxpayer’s day.
    Move on. Move on. Earn an American dream.

    I sip my tea with a hint of a shrug, welcome
    to the littered porch, a yellow leaf landing
    with a soft click. The brown one awaits its
    turn as the twentieth, except I can’t count
    that far in Chinese yet. Aieee…ya! Ni hao.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    09-13-11


  2. A leaf falls as fast as a falling star.



  3. Dave, Luisa, and Albert: my morning is awash in verbal imagery — thanks!

    (**click** — another leaf joins its cohorts.)


  4. Today leaves fall
    through air that holds its breath.
    Who is dropping pebbles?
    Yellow pebbles drop
    through quiet, blue air.

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