Web- A Poem

What a thing, to be a leaf

Stuck lost in a spider’s web

To be dead but held aloft by

That which often goes unseen

To be something other than all other things

And all that life won’t mean.

For just a little while, you can

Rest

You can be held by what’s not there

You can be all the things you hope to be

Even though you’ve died,

And even though you fell

Fast as a tumbling thing toward the earth

To the ground’s embrace that waits

For you, that yellowing crumbling thing

Held for a moment by a finite breeze

That even then will let you go.

And so you fall.

The world rushes fast around you

And through holes punched in who you used to be

As you wait for the end of all that once was

You close your blind eyes and hold breathless breaths

And then you’re caught.

And held.

And all the spinning stops

And you find that you can breathe in that calming moment

That blink

The pause before the end

Because nothing lasts forever, really

Not a leaf, and not a spider’s web.