The Tender Leaf

I wrote this poem in the process of another writing into which it was to be inserted. This is the only part of that writing that I have seen fit to publish. I learned a year or two ago that verse #3 tracks closely with Native American views of the synchronistic trajectory of time and psyche.

The Tender Leaf
© 1981, Jack L. Mace

Slowly cascades the tender leaf
    Down from tree to running brook.
So lately is this gentle life
    Wrenched from its mooring high
Down it falls . . . Down . . . 'twill soon be gone,
    And who shall, in time to come,
Know but we here that ever hung
    Such frond as now seen drifting forth?

 This passing, mean, dare we dismiss?
    Dare behold it commonly?
Truly our frames shall also pass.
    Perchance not so mild our end:
Perchance as yet unpopped buds,
    Or when our term has come full due,
And who shall know in time to come
    That ever passed such as we?

Despair we then - fear our ending?
    No.  Far more than being known
Lies assurance in our knowing:
    Our living in our hoping.
Life for others rests in our hands -
    Our lives in hands of others.
Hope for times yet to come in bond
    With time now, and now long past.

 

Better the world for our coming -
    Yea, even for our going.
Let us then rejoice in passing
    Living hope triumphantly.
Slowly cascades the tender leaf
    Down from tree to running brook.
So lately is this gentle life
    Wrenched from its mooring high.

 

Down it falls . . . Down . . . 'twill soon be gone,
    Who, in time to come, shall know?