FALLING LEAVES

I watched them, half not looking

As if their falling was the start of end.
In ones and twos they glided down
And settled on their mothers bosom
In the bend.
 
Beech they were and oak, some ash
Brothers and sisters of yellow and gold
Wrinkled and spent and going home
Barely born, never knowing the human fear
Of growing old.
 
I watched them in their ones and twos
And multitudes of carpet leaf,
I thought of her in distant climes
Her human thoughts of love and loss
And sometimes grief.
 
They made my simple heart sad
Even though their choir was singing
With one, yet thousand voices
Of re-birth and root and all-renewing
The gift of bringing.
 
Memory is the curse of man
That carries the message of always parting,
Nature knows no mercy or sorrow
Or what to store up for tomorrow
No stopping; only starting.

 

(A TRIBUTE TO NAT KING COLE AND HIS WONDERFUL RENDITION OF ‘AUTUMN LEAVES’.)