I sat down beside my sunlit grandson,

gazing down into the sparkling lake,

whilst he randomly added twigs and leaves,

to the debris wrought by Winter’s floods.

 

One crinkled old leaf, a veiny old chap,

took my eye beneath the gloom,

 buried, as he was, in a watery tomb.

How had he arrived at this soggy end?

Which currents or breezes had brought him here?

What fate had loosened his grip on the Tree.

What force of Nature had propelled him, thus,

sinewy and sad, brittle, and sere,

which water course or current of air,

had persuaded my leaf to end his life here?

 

The leaf looked up, as the poet looked down,

stately and silent, mottled, and brown,

each refracted in the clear H2O,

Leaf and poet, poet and leaf,

trapped in each other’s fatalistic beliefs,

helping each  to determine and finally know,

the direction of winds, both blasted and shear,

the vagaries of life, which had brought us both here.