Leaves Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

They fall onto the surface
of the water where they drift
in nudging ripples from place to place.
Delicately held aloft

in images of cloud-flecked sky
they carelessly journey to and fro
as day and night and day go by
before they sink into the dark below.

And in the heaving undertows
they are transformed: drained
of their coppery red and golden glows,
limp, almost translucent, gossamer-veined.

While I, in wintry light, sit here
and wait for their green spring to reappear.