2011-11-13 at 12-57-18(photo by Justin Jackson) 

 

Who else is already ready for fall, y’all? As much as I love our summer getaways, now that we’re back home I am craving cooler days, that crisp air that means a fall evening (even here in Southern Nevada), and the structure and rhythm of regular schedules.

Call it premature, but in honor of the season many of us crave, for today’s Quadrille, I want us to play with the word:

leaves

Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts – I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
– Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass

Use it as a noun. Tree leaves. Leaves of paper.
Use it as a verb (he leaves, she leaves.) As a verb, you can lop off the “s” and change it to singular if needed (I leave, you leave.) But don’t use “leaf.” That’s cheating. 😉

Ponder autumn in all its colorful glory. Ponder book pages. Ponder a past departure. Ponder the remains of the day when the sun abandons the sky. Ponder the word leaves, and poem us exactly 44 words (not including your title.)

2011-11-13 at 13-01-07
(photo by Justin Jackson) 

 

I leaves you with this:

Each has a past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. – Virginia Woolf

Here’s how to Q44 with us:
Write a poem on your blog in exactly 44 words (excluding title) where at least one of the words is leaves, and link your poem back to dVerse. Visit and get inspired by the other poets. Have fun and remember to come back throughout the week to check out if there are any new entries. We will select one of the poems to be included in our upcoming anthology, and if you are selected we will contact you to get your acceptance.