Leaf

When I was a boy I would delight
in the orangeness of the autumn
leaves so I’d take them home
and press them in a dictionary
or between the pages of the
encyclopaedia that came in chapters
through the mail. Now, all grown up
and lignified, boxed off from the world
by my adultness, I tread but don’t see.
Until, one day, I smell woodsmoke,
open my eyes and find a maple
beauty which smells of five years old.
I turn over an old leaf, perhaps.