Every year when South by Southwest is over,
the airport fills with jostling and bags
and a collective sigh of Californians and New Yorkers
being packed into planes like potatoes
every which way, sometimes stacked.
 
And Austin returns to introspection.
 
Inspection! Tester of spring, the wind crescendos
and asks the leaves, "Are you sure?"
They hold tight through the tossing, the winnowing billows
that ask every branch, "Do you mean it?"
They pass. Like a second fall, the air is confettied
with brown leaves and weak ones flying,
embarking; but the younger leaves cling desperately
to dynastic continuity.
 
For you, there is a time to withstand every gust and to be "wick"
as a secret Yorkshire garden, but there is also a time to
be carried away; to be packed into planes.
Someday green leaves will turn old and pray-
for strength not to hold on, but to pass away.
 
It is a time of both going and staying
here every year in the spring.
The airport fills with leaving,
but the leaves in Austin cling.