I watch the disparate leaves fall down upon the ground,
Stopping once or twice to pick one up or look around.
I see the bushes stroll by in green and yellow and brown and red,
Gathering their slumber for the coming winter.
They parade themselves, taunting, flaunting the colors of their immortality.
Soon, they will die for a season or two,
And I will continue for a season or two.
The path of Nature runs through me,
My veins, my nerves, my dreams,
Hers to claim at will.
I cannot change my leaves or hide within my roots, to be reborn.
I am stuck in my impermanence,
Wearing the shroud I was born with.
I wonder how it will end.
Life, this roused rigid verticality,
Must end in sad horizontal mortality.
Copyright 2005 by Angel A. Plaza.
Angel A. Plaza is a student at Rutgers-Newark.
