Windfall

I released a leaf along the path to see where it would go.
The wind, she tugged and danced it up to the high rock 
where it came to rest, orange-gold in the early light. 
Then, without warning, the same wind raged and tumbled 
it down to a crevice where it caught in shadow and decay.

I asked the wind why she sometimes billows, sometimes bleeds. 
Why lift only to let fall? 
She flurried and stilled and said, it’s just the way of the whim. 

Am I a leaf? I said.

All are leaves, possessed by the wind. 
Now soaring, now tumbling. No matter which or where 
all are slow-decaying, detached from that which sustains,
traveling further and further up to heaven, down to barren fields
where dreams lie hard and sallow, speared in the brittle grass—
They are ghosts against a black horizon, waiting for it to turn orange 
then lavender-blue.