Remainders

Like reading backwards and upside down in a mirror

Words, like dry leaves,
crackle, then fall apart underfoot.
Dead. Having fallen
still green, mid-summer.
Confusing when there's been rain.
More, a wellspring of developing trust.

Like a Cat 5 blew through.
Bubbles burst, branches shatter,
and dead leaves, like tiny skeletons,
are all that is left. New growth
lost -- blown away as if irrelevant.
Letters scattered, anagrams, perhaps.

Narcissus, out of season,
wants summer now. Wants the heat,
but not really. Wants where the tree grew.
But not really. Trumpets platitudes
layered over lies. Some cannot see
the leaf for the tree.

Another chapter off the tracks
that run in circles going nowhere.
Nothing novel here; history repeats
with no knowledge gained. The skeletons
blow away, leaving nothing behind
but a story done too soon, left unfinished.