stained

Should we go upstairs?
the lovebirds leave
and I am left to my lonesome
in the room they no longer inhabit.
Who wants to be the unloved?
I brush it aside and swing open the back door
to sit on the step
which always oblidges.

We have one hodgepodge of a backyard
but I would still argue that it is a piece of nature
Ulmus Carpinifolia, our stately elm, sets the backdrop
as it changes with the seasons.

In winter, its leathery, textured bark is streaked white.
With the spring comes black rounded buds
which unfold into piano leaves by May.
These leaves play their music in the wind until November
when they slowly exhaust their tune to fall to the earth below.
Our yard is stained yellow brown and gold, if only for a season.