TheBanyanTree: october, on hind legs

[Mike Pingleton]

where roared the wind before hurtling here?
it skirls as it whirls, and twirls the skirts
of girls with rain-plastered curls.
the wild waltz strips summer's shirts
from trees and sends them scudding
like tattered scraps of colored cloth,
crab-scuttling until pinned by
the wind to curbs and houses.
some face-plant onto wet pavement,
flat studies in asphalt decoupage.
others huddle at night under their wet blanket-selves
and listen to the soft notes of their wooden
bones releasing atoms back to the earth.