April Seventeenth

The full
Beautiful oak
Had but one flaw.
A single and overall
Insignificant
Leaf.
It sat
Small and undefined
Among the large
Deeply colored
Full leaves.
They rustled together
In a soothing cacophony
Each time the wind blew.
Together they were louder,
But the small
Insignificant
Leaf was not heard.
As they had always seemed to
The leaves acted in unison.
All at once they started to change
Fade
And yellow.
As usual, the
Insignificant
Leaf remained away
So that by the time the other leaves
Were brilliant shades of orange and red, the
Insignificant
Leaf was just starting to
Fade
And yellow.
In small groups the leaves
Fell away from the tree,
Following each other unquestioningly
Into what none of them had ever known.
As per usual, the
Insignificant
Leaf stayed behind.
It watched.
And it waited.
It saw as all the other leaves it had known
Without ever really being a part of
Faded away.
It watched as some fell straight to the ground
Cold and unforgiving
Never making it beyond what had always been.
It watched as some leaves
Carried by a great wind
And maybe a little bit of something else
Were carried off
Headed towards no one knew what.
It watched as some twirled through the air
In complex patterns
Looking as if they would go somewhere
Before falling back to the edges
Of what had always been known. The
Insignificant
Leaf waited, and it waited.
It waited for something to happen.
It waited for a certainty that would never be known.
It waited until that
Insignificant
Leaf was the only one left on the tree.
The leaf waited and waited
Because it was afraid of what was unknown. That
Insignificant
Leaf did not want to
Waste away being
Insignificant.
It did not want to fall
In its one chance to succeed.
And so the
Insignificant
Leaf waited some more to be
Insignificant
No longer.
One day a great breeze came,
The greatest the leaf,
Or the tree for that matter,
Had ever known.
In this breeze the
Insignificant
Leaf clung to the tree
With a surprising amount of tenacious strength.
It clung
Until it was nearly too late. The
Insignificant
Leaf hung on
Trying to decide what to do,
Until the chance to do it nearly passed.
Until finally,
The maybe not-so-
Insignificant
After all leaf
Just let go.