A Leaf Falls Up Poem by Alyssa Marquardt

A leaf falls up
But winds up on the ground.
So soft and small-
He can't even make a sound.

Crying out in frustration;
Hiding from a fate of cremation.
No comrade-
No one to hear his hurt

Disintegrating in the dirt.
No one knows the life he never had.
Once he saw a future
full of mystery and awe.

He thought he would be green,
He thought he would be wise.
Now his only vision is of the back of his eyes.
He invisioned the white of clouds surrounding him,
Never thought one thought so grim
as death.

Just like the man living beside him,
He has not the money to die.
He has not the courage to die.
Praying for one more day to go by.

He'd have not a single thing to leave behind.
He never had the cash
for a heart, soul or mind.

A man who had the money to die,
A man who had not a tear to cry;
Came with the rake-
With the morgue bag in his hand.
The leaf said goodbye to the brown land;
He said goodbye
to life.

The man in the house
Never said goodbye to his wife.
But he too,
Falls into the trap of death.
With nothing left,

The woman cries.
And with her hair in rags,
She must pay the bills he left behind.
She must walk among the blind.

Her clothes-
She sews.
Her smile-
She fakes.
Reluctantly she walks to the yard
to pick up a rake.