Tall trees well past the end of their green season, their lower branches bare:
yet at the very crest, glittering in sunlight, and fluttering in breeze, a golden crown on each.
The light leaves sway in counterpoint at the whim of the winds, yet stick fast to their twigs, not parting to dot the sky’s unbroken blue,
until just one
breeze-borne, breaks free.
Its sisters watch breathless as she
whirls, twirls, awash and away.
Says Gravity: I Want That Leaf . . .
Then like the dancer, fated to her swansong death, this leaf,
now cynosure of every eye in all the breath-held forest,
oblivious of her slow, her deep inevitable descent,
pirouettes and flips, for sheer exuberance,
her unsensed declination stayed but briefly should she catch an updraft,
only to resume.
She dances out all that is within her --
all that she has breathed and seen since she was but a bud,
then verdant, then ochre at the end.
Then -- \ \\ \\\
( Requiescat. )
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