I read once,
but maybe not, maybe my mind fabricated it, spooling it together for later use,
that when a person is dying,
their brain lets out a burst of euphoria, a
celestial sensation that engulfs their mind.
But this is only after a steady decay.
The trees have not yet reached that euphoria. They live in denial about their impending end.
My neck is craned toward the unfathomable sky, the trees a delicate border to my vision,
and I see
the branches have shaded themselves with drained emerald leaves;
they are near the end.
The only color radiating from them is that of the delicate fingers of the sun,
sifting through a wall of tree trunks,
reflecting off the leaves.
But in my entire scope of vision, smatters
of maples know their end is coming,
and erupted
they have churned their pigments into
fireworks of vermilion, orange, amber,
that paint the edges of the sky.
I am standing on the tip of September,
waiting for October to rise over the horizon.