Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz - 1941-

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don't die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since 
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you've probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You 
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. 
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
        or something you've felt that also didn't last.

I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone. I could never show it to anyone. Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me. Sometimes it pleases me. Usually it brings misery. And this poem says exactly what I think. What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover. Exactly. Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them. Some of it might bring misery. And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to hurt anybody. I want everyone to love me. Still, I keep working on it. Why? Why do I keep working on it? Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will ever see it. I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody. I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.

yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.

In today’s paper, a story about our high school drama teacher evicted from his Carnegie Hall rooftop apartment made me ache to call you—the only person I know who’d still remember his talent, his good looks, his self- absorption. We’d laugh (at what haven’t we laughed?), then not laugh, wondering what became of him. But I can’t call, because I don’t know what became of you. —After sixty years, with no explanation, you’re suddenly not there. Gone. Phone disconnected. I was afraid you might be dead. But you’re not dead. You’ve left, your landlord says. He has your new unlisted number but insists on “respecting your privacy.” I located your oldest son, who refuses to tell me anything except that you’re alive and not ill. Your ex-wife ignores my letters. What’s happened? Are you in trouble? Something you’ve done? Something I’ve done? We used to tell each other everything: our automatic reference points to childhood pranks, secret codes, and sexual experiments. How many decades since we started singing each other “Happy Birthday” every birthday? (Your last uninhibited rendition is still on my voice mail.) How often have we exchanged our mutual gratitude—the easy unthinking kindnesses of long friendship. This mysterious silence isn’t kind. It keeps me up at night, bewildered, at some “stage “of grief. Would your actual death be easier to bear? I crave your laugh, your quirky takes, your latest comedy of errors. “When one’s friends hate each other,” Pound wrote near the end of his life, “how can there be peace in the world?” We loved each other. Why why why am I dead to you? Our birthdays are looming. The older I get, the less and less I understand this world, and the people in it.

Poems

Leaves

More by Lloyd Schwartz

A True Poem

Six Words

To My Oldest Friend, Whose Silence Is Like a Death

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