Tree

Tree by the lake

Your leaves fly, flip, fall

Fluttering to the water

Become boats 

Slip-slip-slipping in the wind's current

Settling softly from the surface

To their storage shelf on the lake's bottom.

Tree by the lake

Your leaves tumble, twirl, swirl 

Pirouette across the pasture

Become lifejackets

Grip-grapple-grouping under lilac bushes,

Burrowing beneath the blue Spruce

To blanket the bare earth against winter's cold.

Tree by the lake

Your leaves lazily linger, loiter 

Lifting on the autumn wind

Becoming ships,

List-list-listing light as silvery sailboats, 

Ferrying summer's light and life

To the other shore safe beyond winter—to spring.