by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri
Leaves dance, flame and golden symphony in the chilling October skies, dancing with the grace of a ballerina, which she once was. She wanders the hills and curves alone, a lone lady in lavender, strolling rugged paths, streams drying up, meandering toward their dry death. Tree branches lean like skeletons, the rain beginning its late autumnal descent. She watches them dance, twirling through their routines, against the skies, graying, graying. Charcoal-colored clouds hanging, scowling, breeze blowing, leaves sweep to the ground, crinkling, crumpling. Some take flight again, but others are trampled upon, without love or thought, these graceful beauties. They have fallen, are of no use, as the director of the ballet told her after the leg, his mustache devoid of sentiment. Fallen, talent something of the past, the newspaper articles proclaimed in annoyingly large script. She picks these crumpled leaves, caresses them, presses them to her, these crumpled and wet beauties on this October day. She releases them slowly, tries to set them into the air, but the wind will not take them. They land, she scoops them up, walking, walking away, keeping them to her, the hills scowling with autumn soon to turn to the winter. Go forth, she begs the leaves, sing your autumn song, my sweet leaves, sweet dancers, sing the autumn song, before the winter envelops us.
Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State’s MFA program in fiction. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as Terror House Magazine, Unstamatic, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Ariel Chart. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho. Follow him on Twitter @dudesosad.
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