My mother dug her hands into the earth and pulled out weeds that grew like tree roots, thick and stubborn.

She spoke of life and death, of love and loss, while I knelt beside her and listened.

I closed my fist around a brown, dead, maple leaf.

When I opened my hand back up and released the crushed pieces into the wind, the breeze caught them with eager hands.

They carried the pieces

                                        up,

                                              up,

                                                    up

                                                        into the sun.  

The leaf was thought of no more.

(Source: scribbles-and-scratches)