Other Nature

T'was in the breeze of August that
The leaf fell from the tree.
She had been severed long before
She found that she was free.
The forest floor was foreign,
The flowers in fading hues;
She did not know the way back home
Because her home had moved.

The anger forced her edges, curled
The guilt rotted her stem
Had she been abandoned -
Or had she abandoned them?
She rolled along the winding path,
Her skin a crackling suit
Until a wisp of Autumn wind
Tossed her back to the roots.

She saw the tendrils, spiked and grim
Splintered the soil around
The trunk cried great fat, sticky tears;
The bark was carrion drowned.
The branches, desperate as the roots
Were naked; leaves long gone
And children so familiar
Were now corpses anon.

Far above, the sunlight shot
Into the woods below
It looked so warm and peaceful;
In a way, she longed to go.
The leaf was withering, crushed and frail
Her time would soon evade her;
Should she struggle for the light
Or die on that which made her?

She knew the fibres of her wings
The sinew of her stem
Could nourish and nurture the roots,
Could conjour green again.
She longed to see branches ablaze
With blossom, sweet and wild
Could it make them whole again,
A mother, healed by child?

There was no time for pondering
And so she made her choice:
She laid her sliver body down
And called in a small voice:
"You dropped me from your great height
To this hard floor below
I was already broken
For you do reap what you sow.

And though you did not weep for me
Or mourn my empty spot
I love you, though it splits me
I love you, wrong or not."
The leaf splayed out across the roots
She waited for the slaughter.
And I, the spirit in the woods
I wept for her...my daughter.