I have written a poem for my student who died in a car accident. Let me know if you like it.
Raking Leaves
For Carrie Hilliker, killed 11/09/2007
song in my head.
won’t quit as I work
my way slowly across
the yard.
These leaves are the color
of the Earth.
Brown and red like the
hem of your dress.
All summer long I sat
beneath this canopy of leaves
and drank spring wine
with the pretty girls.
But now it is November
and they have fallen.
It falls to me to pick up
these broken pieces
and hope that someday they
may return,
to the tree from which
they came.
