Sibylline Leaves

Strange white leaves sail on the westerly wind
Ahead of the ominous clouds – descend
Into city parks, parking lots, church yards,
Land on the avenues, streets and sidewalks –
Wind’s ephemera, oddly saved from harm
As steel and concrete came cascading down.

Flyers of loved ones, emblazoned MISSING,
Printed with name, age, height, floor and building.
Are posted at subways and hospitals,
In windows, on lampposts, bus stops and walls.

The downtown is closed off at Houston Street.
Proof of address must be shown to police
For residents to pass their barricades.
Here, the posters are massed as if to wait
As identification to be shown
By the souls of the dead, headed uptown.
Walls, plastered with the copied photographs,
Become bulletin boards of epitaphs.

The autumn wind is neither heard nor seen,
But her tidings are borne on tongues of leaves.
The city is eerily quiet as
The unworldly snow of September’s ash.

Down in the subways, the silence echoes,
Hushed ‘excuse me’s, people rustle as though
An ancient sibyl leaves through the paper.
Blank faces drift home from the day’s labor.
As each windswept sheet belongs to someone,
The wind foretells no future – just the sum.