Fluttering Leaves

There is a seam in the vein of life

in which my heart beats

like the fluttering of a leaf in a breeze,

and the breeze does not last,

nor does the beat of any heart

or the pulse of the cities blood

or the movement of armies across deserts

or the weeping of the mother

whose child was taken by the sweeping wrath

of some dark belief that blinds the mind.

It is all a matter of a cosmic beat

that continues on and on and on

a rhythm of star burst and seed sprout…..

one that cannot be grasped ‘

by our simple extensions of what is

and what might be.

I say the leaves and the winds

are more accurate and pure

in the destines they portend

than our calculated hopes.

I go to sleep with dark and light

hovering behind my thoughts

like sentinels of possible events

for the life I may see tomorrow,

and upon waking find that an incredible newness

awaits and cancels out

my imaginings and give me new beats

for my heart.

I may do this or that with them.

Or I may find a niche of secret comfort

beneath those fluttering leaves

and take them as gods….

I hope so.