Counting the Leaves

one... a piece of scarlett flowing by flirting with the threads on my arms five... breezes tied to their season, warmth running dry canopies reddened with alarm one hundred... endless thoughts of winter's tide her endless beauty and biting touch five hundred... winter's coronation has arrived crowning the ground with white dust one thousand... one leaf left, a hanging army whipping with wind, holding for life one thousand one... a brown corpse, dried and free, falling, falling, last tear from the tree.