The book
at the used book store
had a leaf pressed between its pages,
its veins showing;
pressed flat
and brown;
an unwilling bookmark-
the pages of the ages.

The tree
its mother,
died for those pages

her offspring
flattened out
upon mother's page breast
tiny lines and squiggles
between the veins;
no tree can read
no leaf can comprehend.

I take the leaf to give it a proper burial
in the compost heap
so that its remains
have a small chance
of one day
becoming part of a tree.

I lay its leafy body down
thinking;
'I think I shall never see
anything a lovely as a tree.'
In years
a bookmark it will make
upon my backyard landscape
marking Nature's Chapter entitled
'Ironies.'


.

Lonnie Hicks

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-book-trees-and-leaves/