I don’t want to start anew
When wind rustles softly through the leaves
And you hear the calling of fall,
Would you do as I do?
Would you take a pair of muddied yellow scissors to your hair
As it splits at the ends–-
Wilts, like the leaves in autumn.
And cut, to watch it decay as leaves do?
If you did, you would watch it drift down the seat.
Settling like a feather on the floor of your barbershop.
It is scooped up by your friend as she giggles.
She wished you’d buzzed it all and become a bare tree, ready to start again.
But you didn’t want to.
You wanted to cling tightly to the remaining hair
as pine needles cling to chlorophyll in the dead of winter.
To braid and to twist,
To watch it grow again as snow melts in the spring,
For you are preparing to cut it once more.
So would you take the pair of muddied yellow scissors to your hair,
And would you do as I do?
