A Poem – Ascending Leaves by Mary McAvoy

Ascending Leaves

by Mary McAvoy

Wild winds worry two lifeless leaves, tumbling and turning them,
till lifting them high into the stark branches whence they’d come!

Like a pair of birds ascending, the leaves flutter upward and settle in the naked boughs of spring.
Impaled by or tangled within thin limbs, once again the leaves,
with no green, red or gold in their dead cells,
hang aloft for several minutes before being torn again from their original home.

At the mercy of nature they whip around on currents that give them one more ride
before depositing them on the bed of straw blades the melted snow has uncovered.