It's been a very long time since I've been to this page, and even now I wouldn't know how to begin without the image from Christine's Poetry Party. I can't really call it poetry, but I needed an idea starter apart from the ups and downs of my life this past few months. Please visit her site and add your own reflections.
Questions Posed of a Leaf
Would I have even noticed you
if you had lain there in the drift
of leaves all red and orange and gold
just another vivid token
an ordinary miracle
trampled under foot?
How can it be that you,
separated and fallen from your source of life
can be so exquisite in your dying?
What is the measure of your worth by now?
Too old, beyond your chlorophyll bearing days
no longer exhaling oxygen and gulping CO2
or providing cooling shade,
is your only future the bonfire or the yard bag?
Will you now contribute to the carbon footprint
you reduced when you were truly ‘green’?
Maybe in the best scenario someone’s livelihood
will be to sweep you up to make you into mulch and
spread you on the garden beds. Or that a child will marvel at you,
choose and give you (gift you are!) to someone dear.
Until then, my brilliant friend, nothing is left for you to do
but to delight the eye.
