Ode to a Brown Leaf

brown

dark brown

rustling in the wind

like a tumbleweed

for the forests

everybody stepping on you

for you are a soldier

just escaping death

charging with the wind

or playing dead until

you are picked up again

waiting for the right moment

then launching yourself

out of a tree

like a sky-diver,

but for war with no parachute

and then you stop moving

because you were shot

and having to be amputated

for your spine was destroyed

and you are paralyzed

never going to move again

and to be pushed around

for a while

after you die

Chris H.