The leaves were golden. (A Poem)

The first thing I'll say is, yes, the lines are supposed to be spaced apart like that.  This is a poem for my poetry class (which I didn't get to have workshopped because the teacher called in sick), where the assignment was to write a sentence for as long as possible in verse form.  I didn't write it until the Sunday before class because I wanted to write something that would use the structure of a single sentence to its fullest advantage - I thought about making a list of sorts, going on and on with more and more clauses, and I thought about doing something that led from a particular beginning to its inevitable end, using the sentence as a sort of inescapable string (that idea was going to start with the word "Life" and end with "Death").  Finally, I decided to something different than either of these, to just start with a simple image, and to keep building it up, adding more and more details, painting more and more of a scene.  

Personally, I like this poem.  I've been getting interesting in William Carlos Williams lately, and very simple, imagist poetry.  The themes that ended up coming out of this were actually a happy surprise - perhaps subconsciously I was looking for them, but I didn't expect them to play out this way.  This intro is growing way too long for such a small poem, so I'll end it with my usual request for comments and criticisms.  I hope you enjoy reading it!
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The leaves were golden.
by Matthew Stalbaum

The leaves were golden orange

and red (inlaid with the thin brown skeleton

that pokes out to be a stem), hanging from the branch

in bristling bushels, like tufts of hair,

waiting and wanting to be

let go (by the tree, by themselves), to fall

into piles, into a new scene,

a different clustering, a mosaic

of sorts, of other oranges, other reds,

perhaps some last, lost green leaf

too stubborn to change, but fallen anyway,



while the squirrels and the robins ran

back and forth across the branch,

beckoning out with a quick trill

of notes, the steps and spins of a dance,

waiting on or wanting another to join them

before the leaves are fallen, colored cruelly

in brown, and the branches are brittle and stark.