living on the edge

Sometimes in the summer a
leaf will leave its tree.
Most remain through Autumn
gaining character and announcing colors
hitherto unsaid;
they fall with no remorse
joyously, celebrated, joined.
But often leaves cannot weather
the storm,
be it torrential rainfall or high wind.
Not every leaf is the same,
and some gather along a similar vein--
they will come or go as a group.
The seasons are harsh and each present
trials that challenge the foliage,
even to the point of catastrophe--
the loss of an entire community.
When that happens trunks, branches, twigs,
are mourned throughout the forest;
individual leaves will be singled out
to represent the whole.
But it is hardest for the branch when a leaf
falls in the spring or the summer,
when so many days of sun and growth
are before it.
We cry then, and live on,
or we fall to despair.