Winter Leaves

Wet brown broken leaves
Stuck to the end of their branch
Single, separated flags
Flutter in the winter wind
Now long past autumn
And still they can’t fall
From where they’re stuck
To whippy branches
Way out there at the end
Of the tree’s most flexible part
They seem trapped
Like a fish on a line
The wind can’t blow them
Off their flexible perch
And gravity won’t pull them
They rest there in their death
Simply proving
That the sleeping tree lives
In spite of the earth
That calls the leaf back