I – Argument the First
The color question is solved very easily.
I will have them bury my pale body
In my fire-bright silk pajamas,
With a mouthful of wildflower seeds.

    II – The Second
A crowd of stiff brown leaves emits
A faint and earthy musk. But I!—
I will stink enormously.

    III – Argument The Third
I’ll molder in the ground. The leaves
Will waft their moldering about,
In air, where tree-roots cannot suck them:
But I shall be bound about with many roots.

    IV – The Boundless Fourth
It’s easy to forget the drifting leaves.
If bodies weren’t too heavy for the breeze,
Oh, we would not forget them! Though
We’d think less of our several mortalities.    

V – A Conclusive Argument
The aspen leaves tremble in wind,
As frisking with the sun. Mine tremble with age;
And when my fingers fail, at last,
That fall is final, final, final, final.

Roman Bartos is a retired fireman, trying on a second life as a poet and teacher of English for refugees in St. Louis, MO. His greatest influences are Kafka, Rilke, and Yeats.