Foliage

Green grass, thin blades

green stems, humble aids

green hoppers, chirp strain

green thorns, proud disdain

Red petals, moist seams

red butterflies, despairing dreams

red buds, promissory visions

red berries, sweet illusions

Sunshine,

the much anticipated; the deliverance

On a firm branch of a Beech

Hangs my upturned silhouette

loneliness engulfs my world

speaks not, my neighboring leaf

And in this aimless existence,

find I no source, no sink

but for her boundless curls

but for the moles on her cheek

Come afternoon,

she walks up to the mighty trunk

There’s a calm sea in those eyes

that froth and foam but only on the fringes

perhaps it’s indicative of some purpose

else, just a tempered zest

And brushing clean the cold limestone slab

that forms just the perfect seat

slowly, she sits just below my reach

and reads aloud every single page

Come dusk,

she leaves; need I explain my misery?

I wait the whole night

and couldn’t care less about the day

to hear her assume the many voices

with honest, capricious glee

And every other day

she brings the same big volume

and every single day

she comes up here, without fail

And I hear the cryptic thrush

Laugh and ridicule my passion

But how does one explain

that before she began her visits

had I never felt this way

had I never wanted anything this bad?

How does one resolve

the everlasting dispute on love

the get-to-know-‘em-first

and the wounded-at-first-sight?

Want, desire, demand

believe me, they ain’t the same

What does a leaf know about Shakespeare?

All I want is for her to read to me

what care I for pathetic fallacies

all I desire is to belong to her

There isn’t a truth to be shared here

but that the sole thing I demand

from whatever that pulls our strings

is to let me be able to reach her

Anywhere would do,

Brown curls, slim fingers, pink lips, small feet

What was that

Was it the work of the wind?

Or the outcome of my burning desire?

Or just the hand of fate?

But I find myself moments later,

plunge down onto the limestone slab

but it’s not just me, a whole host of us

rest fallen from our exalted perch

Is there, after all, truth to that

the more you leave, the less you lose ?

I waited eagerly from dawn till dusk

surely this was the day I had waited for all along

surely she'll feel my burning passion

surely she'll notice the red from the green

She didn't come.

Besides, I'm just a fuckin' leaf, ain't I ?