Foliage by Valerie Parente

This safe haven,
where you can smell the foliage,
leaflets with an amber bruise,
the fresh green Godsend.

These leaves that fall,
they came and they went,
seasons of distress and joy,
while you try to comprehend.

There is pain in bare trees,
skeletal and sharply bent,
you wait, you hibernate,
every year it feels like the end.

You think your pain is gone,
when you are dead,
but it’s the “you” that’s gone,
as your identity transcends.

– Valerie Parente (5-17-2021)