Decoding the Fall Colors

Enjoying the Fall leaves, colorful,
I hear Sun’s whisper: remember, too,
decode my message in the  Fall colors.
Of all the colors of sun’s message,
the pale yellow warns of
the vanishing rain forest;
the shy lavenders, the polluted oceans and
endangered marine lives;

the gray one, plethora of CO2 in the air,
the green house gas, the holes in the ozone layer
in the atmosphere, the sharp ultraviolet ray,
health problems of animals and us;

little white flowers, melting artic ice,
harming the ecosystem;
the beige tan, the contaminated water source,
river and the lake;

the orange leaves, ailing of the Earth;
the bold red, the embarrassed sun,
like the one in the thick smog.

O the rose in the pink, our waking, hope;
plan, work, to save our Mother Earth.
With beam, the sun waves the flag.

©Byung A. Fallgren

*This piece first appeared in The Avocet, Fall 2021, printed issue.
Thank you, Charles, Vivian, Valerie, for accepting the poem.