Bronislaw Maj: "A Leaf"

A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch:
it is spinning in the transparent air of October, falls
on a heap of others, stops, fades. No one
admired its entrancing struggle with the wind,
followed its flight, no one will distinguish it now
as it lies among other leaves, no one saw
what I did. I am
the only one.



"A Leaf" by Bronislaw Maj, from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Mariner Books, 1998). Translated from the original Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass.

Art credit: Untitled photograph from www.tophdgallery.com.