Falling Softly

In the chilled blanket of an ever darkening night

still cricketed with pale murmurs of pleading chirp,

a swarm of rustling lives beyond the misty leave

of a wispy ghostly breath... I listen stilly

to the eerie sound of an unseen screech-,

owl wooing and trilling into a falling kiss.

Leaves by day tipped in colors, grave and orange,

of jams, preserves, and marmalades

now settle for slumber at an early dusk.

The drowsy colors of imagination

are asleep and drifting skyward

into the black, and white, and gray

of a nightly settle.

The Moon, in golden yellow,

her pesky arc is the lamplight,

shedding her gauzy mercy

upon the sleeping calamity of colorful lids-

just before they're dying.