Letting Go

Today is the day the ginkgo tree will lose all its leaves.

It began yesterday a shower of yellow on a sunny day

a fall of bright fans filling that corner of the yard

and I have learned that it is usual for the ginkgo

to lose all its leaves in a span of twenty four hours.

Very soon now it will be left standing

bare resolute proud in a pool of yellow

while its comapnion pin oak clings to all its leaves

well into winter never having learned, it seems,

the art of letting go.