Purple Leaf Farms

To cut you down
leave only the subtle outline of your existence
erase the evidence of unrealized expectations
feels so perversely satisfying
that I question my own nature.
I kick you with my boots
knock you down
tear you up
throw your remaining beauty onto the ground
where you will eventually dissolve into nothing
and at the same time everything.
Am I a monster?
Didn’t I once care for you like a child?

But it is October in zone 6
Winter is coming
and the garden must be put to bed.
Once my obsession,
now I rush to demolish you.
I ask for no blame when
in the autumn of your life
I discard you with such joyful abandon
as though I never cared at all.
For I look past you now
toward hopes for a better season
that will surely themselves
come eventually to rest with you
in the chilly dry ground
of a regretful year’s end.