Windfall

I dropped a leaf along the path 
to see where it would go. 
The wind caught it and
danced it to the high rock 
where she let it rest, orange-gold 
in the unimpeded light. 
Then, without warning
in a rage-gust she tumbled it 
to a crevice where she let it lie, 
shadowed in 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 farther and farther
up to heaven, down to barren fields
where dreams lie hard and sallow,
speared in the brittle, wind-chipped grass—
They are ghosts against a black horizon
waiting for it to turn orange 
then lavender-blue.