I Am

A leaf carried by a breeze
I have little to my name

Withered and worn,
I've seen my share of change--
A season's change;
Not much

I'm green;
but its only the reflection--
the truth is more profound
Than what can be seen
In a shallow puddle.

And I--
I am an ocean

Buried in the layers
Of my soft flesh--
in the depth
Of my existence,
A vastness, unseen.

As I'm dragged along,
I take it all,
The violent words
Whispered against my flesh by
angry winds and crashing waves--
The desire of the flames, exploding in ecstacy;
A forest succumbing in shame.

The pain, the loss, the value
Of the world.
I hear it
And I speak of it--
Not at all.

Not of the sorrow of
A ragged root caught around the ankle
Of innocence--
Or of a branch
Torn from the elder tree's body;
The agony of Wisdom's desecration

Like the Library of Alexandria;
All the knowledge of a nation
Lost.

I hear the prayers of desperate men
And I hear the curses of madmen

And because I am everything
And nothing
All at once
I hear, I feel, I see
Silently

I stand somewhere between
the bearer and the destroyer;
And I watch
As war is waged.


Green, am I.
But, Oh, the things I've seen