Tiny infant of a speechless mother
with tender skin and popping veins,
Attached umbilically,
growing minutely,
changing and maturing as the months progress.

Full grown and strong,
still connected to its mother-
nourishing, loving,
how could it ever leave?

Growing tired of the blowing breeze,
wanting to be
one of the trees:
monarchs of the shadowy forest.

Observing
beings of deliberate paths-
free wanderers,
unrestricted by roots and
stationary branches.

Withering helplessly as all lives do
as fall’s blushing red
corrupts its bones.
And it curses its perpetual days
of vertically inching,
fed by its mother it doesn’t know.

Facing the inevitable,
brittle and cracked,
separated from its lifeline
by a cruel, wintry gust.

Landing facedown in the snow,
reflects on its short life
of thoughtlessly surviving
and cherishing every breeze.