-- FALLING LEAVES --

By John Herlihy

I dreamed of a leaf

At first single, solitary.

The leaf crimson red,

As if from its own heart bled.

I gaze closely at the leaf’s face,

Wrinkled, veined in every place.

Its brief life never lived in haste,

The landscape of its life well traced.

- - - - - - - - - -

The leaf began falling and falling,

On gentle wind, the breeze enthralling.

Uniting with other leaves in a mosaic of colors,

The leaves as hands joining as brothers.

The wind now orchestrating autumn’s parade,

Eddies swept the leaves in an endless cascade.

If you will be the sky, then I will be the bird,

I be the falling leaf and you be the wind heard.

- - - - - - - - - -

The leaves tumbled together in unison and fell,

They tumbled down and down as they fell and fell.

Every falling, ever weightless, taking their time,

As I watch, I fall with them, their feeling mine.

As if no longer caring, complete surrender to fate,

A noble surrender, no longer to take life’s bait.

Waving fare thee well now at the end of their days,

The leaves fell on the dreamer the weight of their gaze.

- - - - - - - - - -

(c) John Herlihy 2 November 2018