Autumn Leaf

Yellow leaf on black pond
Of two worlds
Under a bare branch of your tree
That combs the morning mist
Reaching out for winter's sleep

How different your back
And your belly must feel
Stuck to the top of deep water
That soft familiar whisper of breeze
Now silenced under a muffle of cloud
Pushes at your belly
But the irresistible pull of the river's current
Moves you now closer to the shore

While you floated
I watched a boat pulling logs up the river
Its exhaust mixing with the mist
Spreading from a cotton-cloud gray
To an air-brushed blue
As the boat took its sound
Around the river's bend
I noticed you again
In your neither-here-nor-there world
Still and silent

There wasn't much of a wake
From the boat or its boom
More like the jelly-jiggle of rippled water
But it cast you on the shore
Where you folded and tore in two
Yellow leaf on black pond
Circling back into life

Stuck at the interface