IMG_0782It’s just the rustling leaves on the ground – the gentle breeze

that blows. It’s the glow of lights around the evening trees.

It’s the smiles in her joyful eyes, the love that I see around.

It’s the warm nudge, a subtle touch of flesh, or a gentle sound.

I felt it tonight, within hopes on the faces I see wherever I look.

Graceful laughs under branches, and falling rain around the brook.

I smell it in the cold night air, brown like the leaves of autumn’s rust

I touch it in hugs of fleece, wondrous wool, fabric mufflers of trust.

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It’s in the sound of music, softened in bits of sweet tingling taste.

It’s in the rustling of leaves on the ground – a season of deathly waste.

It’s America tonight, Midwest, in the folds of a gradually freezing host:

I stand with words as shield, the less squelching shawls I know the most.