And August leaves of abundance
must abandon the trees of November
descending to stark silhouettes,
graphic and grey and attentive.

—from “Orchard 1,” Kathryn Hohlwein

•••

And now they are on their way
to that state of bare attention—

we see them tall and skeletal
even when modestly half-clothed,

their bones poking out from
the now-thinning opulence,

mourning the thriving canopies
that cooled us all summer,

the murmur of wind ruffling
so many leaves we couldn’t

count them. Now we can.
Like thinning hairs on a

sweet head, we see what
we’d rather not—the tender

underside that calls for
compassion, the opposite

of intolerance. They are
the innocents holding their

stripped arms in the air,
exposed, defenseless,

our longstanding neighbors,
worthy, at the very least,

of our concern, our care.

•••

(In honor of International Day for Tolerance, Nov. 16, 2023)