If you see, as you look from your window,
Just leaves and mud and smoke-
Heed then, the leaf as it settles
To the sod from the stately oak.
Down at last with its fellows,
Its destination is clear:
To arise, reborn as a new leaf
Some other, more fanciful year.
To the Iris that brightens the May-time
This mud is the soil-stuff it needs;
It is home, food and protection
For uncounted thousands of seeds.
The spiral from neighbors’ chimneys
Is their smoke-signal fresh unfurled;
A message of glad reassurance
That all is well with their world.
What shows through the frame of your window?
The drab is a screen that will shift-
A drop for the drama of winter
The imagination can lift.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, November 15, 1949
