Promise and the Tender Leaf

Paper-thin, leather skin,
melt wet on fertile ground
amid your brush cut kin,
tacked by nature's Velcro;
soft like felt, gleaming
yellow, weighted down
'neath droplets of sparkling dew,
illumed by promise
from morning's keenest glow.

I learned today you died

unlike the tender sugar maple,
undressing for a long slumber,
that bore its child-like leaf.
Millions more budding leaflets
unfurl with yearning next spring;
sadly, none as perfect as you.