While Taking Leave..... Poem by Portia Burton

While taking leave of its shade,
I gaze thankfully at my favorite tree,
Embrace its rough and hard trunk
As I would embrace someone dear to me.

Then I pick up its fallen leaf,
Touch it gently as I would a running brook,
And carry it with me most carefully,
To be kept lovingly in my notebook.

Because I've full faith in that tree,
And in its benevolence, so that some day,
Even its fallen leaf, before turning to dust,
Will write an invisible ode to the glory of May.

In my notebook, which I'll just trace to be shown
To the world as a new poem of my own!