A Temporary Loss

When fall falls and the leaves fly

In cities, wilds, and suburbs,

Think of Edwin Arlington

Depicting leaves as God’s means

Of committing suicide

By so many little knives.

Well, that’s a local image,

Autumnal melancholy

For lands with woods and seasons.

Deicide as suicide

Would find other metaphors

On low-latitude islands,

Or on permanent ice sheets,

Or in the open desert,

You presume. Something changing,

Something going, some sadness

At an ordinary loss,

A temporary loss,

The expected way things go,

Comforting actually, no?

Hell is more than half, he wrote,

Of paradise. Exactly

Why it seems such paradise,

Wherever gods choose to die.