Scattered Leaves?

…and there they lie beneath the tree

Parched echoes of what used to be

Sonnets of laughter and regret

Bleeding from summer’s silhouette

And life’s fair hour in the sun

Before minuscule dreams are done

As we reach for life’s deeper Truth

Unacknowledged in our youth

But now we see mortality

Like a small leaf upon a tree

Where soon its passion decks the sod

Like crumbled thrones of lesser gods

That cannot succor our great need

With filthy lucre of our greed

For all the greatness man achieves

Is nothing more than withered leaves

If we should fail to recognize

The Power cradling sea and skies

What is a man but shards of dust?

Driven by our foolish lust

Where nothing on this temporal earth

Holds credence of eternal worth

But we are loved and owned by He

Who forms each leaf upon the tree

And in each man a living soul

That nature’s law does not control

For then we would be nothing more

Than scattered leaves upon earth’s shore

Janet Martin