One yellow leaf

Clinging tightly to the twig
Like a first day child at the school gates,
The one yellow leaf
Shivers in the stiff November breeze.
Inevitability denied
With irrational stubbornness,
It seeks to reverse the flow of rivers,
Travel backwards in time
And snip the umbilical cord of the moon.

Passing by,
Collar upturned and eyes slitted,
I admire its pathetic bravado,
In the same way that the last survivor
Charges the lines of the enemy
With spear upturned.

There is a need for futility
In a world of purpose.

When I pass, the following day,
It is gone,
Shaken loose and scolded on its way,
To join the millions mashed into the earth.
And I feel that I am nearer
My own time of clinging on stubbornly
Against the odds.