Leaves Listening
by Odin Roark

He strolls the path
Where history’s leaning trees
Bend their boughs
As if listening with sentience
We know not of.

He muses of one day
Climbing their pyramidal spires,
To sit among the treetop leaves
As limbs bend their ears
Heeding all the path-laden echoes.

For what layers of voices past
They must have gathered
From primate wanderings,
To parasol strollers,
To clandestine whispers.

He ruminates on a simple joy
To be part of Nature’s munificence,
Not the master of same,
Or the cynic in denial,
Obviating all he does not understand.

Man too can listen,
Yet how commonplace today
Pathfinders of greed,
Their patronizing heads pointed down,
Eyes averting reality,
Their dialog of mock indifference,
Save the winning goal of the day
Be it money,
Stock,
Power,
Or all of the above.

How pernicious
The usual sauntering a-moral malaise,
Accepting not the pleasure
The leaves know so well,
That living is a replenishment-sacrifice,
Not a selfish act
Of rapacious taking.

Still…

Few choose to emulate
This altruistic foliate process,
Where Nature’s awareness
Becomes wisdom left behind
To nurture future existence.

But…

That would require listening,
Man’s impoverished talent,
Save our stroller pausing to look up,
Hoping not to be swallowed
By gathering darker skies.