Fall Sestina

I rarely write poetry. Yet today I thought I'd try my hand at the sestina form.  I'm sitting in my living room, my hands so cold with the chill of the house in fall.  Outside, I see the leaves with the suggestion of color on their edges.  Perhaps I too have the suggestion of color on my fingertips.

Fall Sestina

As I watch the leaves
Falling, falling
Upon the mossy earth.
I consider the chill
And wonder if it's life
Sharper and hard.

I touch the ground, so hard
Under the layer of leaves
Now resting from life
And the thrill of falling.
My body seizes with chill
As I stare at the earth.

My fingers dig into earth,
Thrusting through the hard
Surface, the chill
Now forgotten, blown with the leaves
No longer falling
But surging with life.

I consider this, my life,
As my fingers force aside the earth.
My soul is falling, falling,
And the task is growing too hard.
I'm surrounded now by the leaves,
Overcome as I fight the chill.

My soul grows cold with chill,
But I fight for signs of life
Even as the autumn leaves
Continuously crowd the earth,
My frozen fingers now hard,
And I feel myself frozen, falling.

The rain now falling,
Compounding the chill,
My face cold, on the ground hard,
Too hard, to allow new life.
I consider my breath, the earth,
the peaceful corruption of leaves

No longer falling. I lie on the earth
And the leaves stifle the chill
As my hard heart now thaws for life.