If I were a leaf trembling and about to fall,

          and you were the ground beneath,

I would waft, pleasingly

           tempting, the wind catching and lofting me,

shuddering me, allowing me to dance

           and tease you.

 

If you were the ground beneath

          you would wait patiently,

soil pliant and waiting;

          when finally we touched

you would hold me lightly upon yourself,

          hold me as my foliage dress disintegrated,

‘til my leaf-bones lay exposed and fragile.

 

Hold me until even those fragile bits

          became as nothing,

and I became no more a whispering and clattering

          sun worshipper

but a part of you, ground,

          brown and fetid, moist and rotted,

bearer of life and seed.