Last Leaf Poem by Tony Jolley

The Last Leaf of autumn’s last lease
Fell under leaden skies
Weeping winter over the lanes of Landser.
Torn from its twig
It rode the wind a while
Upon brittle-brown Sycamore wings
To ‘land’ in a puddle
Of soft, yellow-orange lamplight.

No mulching for the forest floor
Or succour for the pulsing shoots of spring,
Not even the faintest memory
To remain
Of that lush, green former glory;
But the ignominy
Of being drowned,
Then ground
To little more than nothing
Between tyre-tread and tarmac.

Gone,
But in these few lines,
Written
Upon this shroud-white, memorial
To its family felled and fallen:
Not forgotten.