I Am As a Leaf

Are the sailing leaves apart from me?

Soon as I call them a word, they’re different.

But when I stand alone

Watching them come down in streams

I’m not an outlier in the shadows of their majesty.

A part from me, apart in my rejection,

Though texts describe the anatomy of a leaf,

Growing from a tree or a bush, different than I,

But a tree from which I eat,

And how a leaf dissolves in the soil I stand,

Carried by winds and storms,

Breaking into pieces then emptied into puddles

It floats in the words of Aurelius:

I see myself standing in the puddle

Passing with his death, as did he,

Yet giving life to the surrounding trees.