Dance

I wander among the trees in search of life.

The sky is no longer overhead,

but in my heart, where it beats in time

to my ceaseless anxiety.

The leaves don’t fall, they detach themselves

then meander earthwards in a dance with gravity.

Is this why trees exist?

So that leaves can dance with gravity?

We think of dances beginning in floors,

but a floor is where the leaf dance ends.

The merging with earth begins.

Rain, wind, time:

and the leaf becomes the floor.

How long before its atoms emerge,

as flower, grass, air, or even sap? 

It all goes on without us noticing.

The next time you see a leaf, though.

Your branches twist around my words

till branch and word are one,

waiting for blossom.

The atoms are always dancing.

Can you feel them? Is that what breathing is?

Is that what living is?

Our eternal atoms continue after

What is to become of us?

has been answered.

We cannot be left behind, not fully.

You were born into this world,

no, you were born out of this world,

and once born, you remain, forever, somewhere.

After my breathing has stopped,

I will wander among the trees again,

my heart will return to the sky,

and perhaps I will dance with the leaves.