Becoming

When the leaves fall, I feel their green call to me unto death. Whispering that what was fresh is no more. I hear their silence, see their veins weave through their becoming - from brittle leaves to tomorrow’s dust. And as the tree, limb to limb with the others, stands tall like a soldier ready for battle, the leaves fragment as they fall. They never try to hold on for they know their fate. They land as one with winter’s snowy lace calling to the bitterness all around to remind of what once was new born to beauty on high. Ignored by passerby, they lay desolate beneath the underlay of moments gone by, every kindness and cruelty and breath. December’s frozen face tries to smile in remembrance but can only shudder under the sullen sky, mourning reflected in an icy mirror, as it stings the earth (and I) with sleeted tears and the woeful winds commiserate. Oh, how they call to the small within me like innocent days and love taken for granted, but I, like the leaves, am silent. Life is wondrous and beautiful until the end. As the season of white melts into gray, the leaves, (and I), softly fade away. Written 5/7/22