Lost and Found

It hangs high, blazing like a tiny bonfire kissed by the September breeze. A stronger wind blows and pries free its grip from its maple home. It was lost already, its mates having already left the branches. Like the lost feather of a cardinal, it flutters downward and alights on the ground where it rejoins mates of hammered filigree buried in earthen tones. Now one of many, it is found somewhere in the Earth’s shifting blanket. There it remains until the hand of man should pile it up and remove it.