Page 4 - News and Views Spring 2023

The Falling Leaf Peter Estall

The Falling Leaf was read at Bob Jacob’s memorial Meeting for Worship. It was written by
Bob’s friend and is a leaf talking to a tree.

The Falling Leaf

Dear Tree
I didn’t like to admit to our parting – and yet it came
Too late to say all the things I would have liked to have said
This letter is inadequate but, well, let me say thanks.
Thanks for the strength drawn from you
Thanks for the high, the large perspective of life you gave me.
I hope my dying will somehow enrich you,
despite the trauma through which I’m going.
Remember me,
Remember
how you took pride in my fresh, newborn green;
the maturity of summer months;
then the warm, red glow of autumn
Remember
how firmly you held me when the storms of life blew strong
I give you in death what you gave me in life
life, nourishment, future
Let not my dying be in vain
for in me lies your future
the lives of generations of leaves yet unborn
Let those who will
shove me in a plastic bag and destroy me as garbage;
burn me as in a funeral pyre of the fallen;
tread me under foot, as of no consequence,
I return to the earth from whence I came
and in so doing with rise again

Let Mother Earth welcome me into her warm embrace,
that the loneliness of death may be assuaged
So, Tree,
thank you for life, for death and hope,
Your friend

Leaf

A Falling Leaf a poem by
Trevor A Smith in the book

The Falling Leaf
A ministry to people affected by HIV/Aids
It is available from Amazon.

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