Holding On: an autumn reflection

I may be the last delicate leaf on this tree,

Hoping to fall gently but fearing fierce gusts from the east,

Soaking squalls from the west now my reality.

I hang on to the familiar refuge of my bough,

Lamenting those leaves that have long let go.

Yet still I cling to my spring and summer memories.

I have only three seasons, no winter here for me as I contemplate my fate.

I envy the acorn, carrying the future, the shiny seed of a hundred-year oak.

I have only the past, my beauty now faded and dry.

Will I fall to the ground, to be raked up and burned?                       

Or left unseen in the grass, unheard,

My skeleton fragile and transparent?

I know there is no shame in impermanence. 

Nothing lives forever; clouds pass over, tides ebb and flow to the moon’s tune.

Yet I would like to last a little longer; is that too much to ask?

I will take a chance at reincarnation.                                         

I have soaked up the radiant warmth and light of fairer seasons

And given them back as nourishment to this, my mother tree. 

So when new buds burst in spring, one of them may be me.

If I must become mulch or mould, let new life take hold

And root in me, a flower in summer borders

Heady with hue and scent and bees.  

Or let me be picked up by a delighted child

Pressed lovingly between leaves of a different kind. 

Then forgotten maybe, preserved within the pages,

One day falling again, through a portal to a timeless world

Where it remains forever autumn.