Shriveled leaves take their dying breaths
one by one,
falling,
falling,
slowly decaying
on frostbitten ground,
replaying their last memories
of summer.
A seed lies dormant
under hardpacked snow,
waiting,
waiting
for its chance
to be born.
Was the seed once the leaf?
Or the snow?
Is the new bud
waiting for the right moment
to manifest
the old tree that last autumn
laid its corpse to rest?
Is death life?
Is life death?
An infinite dance,
different and the same,
duality
and oneness.
The seed breaks free,
stretching,
stretching
past the crumpled blanket,
a graveyard of skeleton leaves,
holding the imprint
of leaf-veins in its DNA—
green memory rising.