Leaves

I've done nothing with the leaves,
But watch them die.
Gold become bronze become oil dark brown.

When first they fell, their swirling dances,
were the wind conducted overture of winter.

When the snows fell, they were a quilt to the frozen ground,
but slowly we could feel them fail and flatten,
to rigor stiffened slabs.

Thawed in the warmth of early spring,
their frost blackened corpses
formed layer on layer of slick decay.

Their ghosts became treacherous.
Slippery rotten piles, a trap for the unwary.
frustrated by my broken arm,
I harboured grudges and added them to my list of scores to settle.

Until this morning, when the glimpse of twin leaved, tender, sprouting,
made them a garden.

I've done nothing with the leaves,
but they have done much with me.