The Leaf

Green stands the tree full of leaves

It blooms in the spring

In summer bears its fruit. 

The fruit is picked, 

The time of harvest passes.

The air turns cold. 

One by one green leaves fall

But one… still clings to the tree.

Afraid. 

“Your time has come,” 

        whispers the wind.

The leaf looks far down and clings to the limb.

He looks to the spot where brothers hung on,

And to the stem from which he has come. 

“Let go little leaf,” 

whispers the wind again. 

Leaf looks down to brown

leaves on the ground,

“I don’t want to be like them!” 

“Let go little leaf, and reach up to the sky!

Let go little leaf and fly, fly, fly!”

Leaf lets go. 

The leaf lets go of it’s tree and falls free.

Caught on the warm wind, it soars high.

Up it soars like a stringless kite.

Afraid of heights,

 afraid of lightning strikes,

Afraid of stormy rains.

Afraid stormy rains may take him back to where he came. 

Up in the air, 

making friends with the sun

Flying here and there, 

Laughing at all that looks so tiny from above, 

Leaf forgets to be afraid.

“Where are you taking me, warm wind?”

“To the paths in the sky, no one knows where,

No one knows why! Sail with the wind and 

You will never die!”

The leaf sails left, the leaf sails right,

All the way around the world, 

Leaf flies the highways in the sky. 

Til up through a white cloud

The wind turns cold

The leaf looks down

Mirror clear his reflection is a rainbow now.

The cloud is turning grey and from it thunder sounds.

The cold, cold wind starts to blow down.

The rain begins to fall, the leaf begins to sing:

“I’m letting go of my roots,

Reaching out to the sky,

Letting go of who I was 

So I can fly fly fly. 

Away from my tree

I lost the green

Away from my home

A rainbow leaf has grown!”

Down, 

down, 

down the wet leaf is sailing.

He reaches the ground never ever fearing.

He lands in a pile of brown brother and sister leaves.

The sun warms Leaf up again until 

He is crackly crunchy dry.

He wishes he was back up in the sky.

Laughter fills the air as leaves are raked up under a tree.

Jumped on by feet having fun, 

Leaf is beat down into the dark brown ground.

Leaf returns to his roots.

Broken into little pieces

Swimming in a puddle of rain

Down into the dirt he seeps

Looking for somewhere to sleep

Leaf juice finds roots. 

By some amazing grace, 

As if it were a race,

He is pulled up again! 

He hears the wind and the rain

Calling his name,

“Leaf come fly, come fly again! 

Let go of your roots and reach up to the sky

Come Rainbow Leaf, come fly, fly, fly!”

Spring comes again. 

A new leaf is born on the limb.

A leaf who knows no fear of wind. 

This leaf is ready to let go of a green life,

Let go of its roots and reach up to the sky.

It does not wonder where the wind may go or why,

It only wonders, how long, how fast, how high!

Lydiangeline

November 2018