Poem of the Week

The leaf falls to the ground and decomposes

 into smaller meanings—moisture, pigment,

 lamina, oxygen, heat, light—the way

 someone spells out their full name

 to a stranger: car-bon di-ox-ide.

 Nothing is lost along the way, neither

 its conversations with the night rain

 nor flying lessons given by birds: it all

 decomposes into smaller units directly

 assimilated by patient ants, the silent mouths

 of the forest. That's why the language

 of the wind also comes to be spoken

 underground. That's why worms try on wings

 and fly away, turned into butterflies. Everything

 is matter. Everything is transformed into flight

 when a simple leaf falls to the ground.