A single leaf.
I am a leaf.
A single leaf, green.The last of my days,
sun scorched, wind beaten,
full of the unquenchable thirst
age has for the waters of youth!
Dry and brown
will I drift…
Down from this tree.
Softly, maybe, on a cool breeze. If I am a lucky leaf,
within the whirlwind of storm!
Raging!
Will I fall!
Fall…
Fall. Down.
To the soft earth that bore me.
Me, a simple leaf. At the foot of my mother.
A single leaf,
Into the green again.
A leaf, into the cool darkness of soil.
A single leaf.
(I have had a particular image in my head for some time, and whilst this is not nearly my best work, I like that it conveys something of that image both in form and through metaphor. It is also, I might add, a direct result of an article written by Robin Artisson, Veratyr’s Precious Gift,which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the ancient religion of the Norse.)
Dearest Inga, how lovely that this sprung from that image in Robin’s essay! That image stuck in my head also and I thought of it when I began reading your poem, it was a funny moment of recognition to see that you were thinking it too.
Alice! It is the sort of image that is very powerful, and as I thought on it more, the image of each of us coming to be as leaves from Yggdrasil is so completely at odds with more common contemporay ideas and further seeks to place our deaths in a new context. I felt really determinded to capture somehow.
I am glad to have made you think it, and as they say, great minds think alike!
I love it! But am a bit confused by the second line: “A single leaf, green”? The seventh line describes you as “dry and brown”…
Otherwise, it’s marvellous. I especially love “Me, a simple leaf. At the foot of my mother”. I also love the repetition and diminishment of “Raging! / Will I fall! / Fall… / Fall.”
There are a thousand poems like this one, and they all concern the notion of mortality. Yours is deeper than that because of that one line that likens the tree to your mother. If the last of your days occur within the full-blown strength of your mother’s years, then how are we to assume that you have reached a natural long life? On the contrary, you have given us a poem that really is about a leaf. I think it’s beautiful and I appreciate it all the more for its refusal to draw my attention elsewhere.
Thank you Simon. Honestly, you are good for a girl’s ego. Little wonder I appreciate your opinion so.
I’m very glad it worked! In regards to your first point, after writing it I realised it might be a bit confused, but I felt the “Will I” clarafied that enough. The green leaf is looking forward to the “last of my days” considering it’s own demise “perhaps” on a cool breeze softly, or within a raging storm.
I always get a little bit frightened when it comes to repetition. It can signal the end of a an otherwise good poem if left unchecked. But how long does it take to fall? How many ‘falls’ indicate that time as it passes?
Certainly it is about mortality, and I am glad that particular line stood out for you, within it I hoped to be able to demonstrate a different understanding of mortality. One contrary to the usual human one.
I’m chuffed that you like it and that it apparently works as I would wish. Thanks Simon!
A finely penned existential incantation!
Thank you veganmaster! Really glad that new people are taking time to read my little poems… :)