The red maple leaf on the wet pavement looks like a star.

Maybe it once was that, a star, a star that

Exploded into infinite piece of dust that

Traveled across the galaxies and eons,

Just to land on earth and dissolve into the ground,

Waiting.

Until the samara whirleygigged one day

Onto the spot where the star dust lay

Waiting.

The seed took root

Nourished by the once-star

And grew and leafed and

Provided shade from a different star.

The leaf blazed,

Its explosion merely a fall to earth

There on the wet pavement,

A reminder of what once was

Eons ago.

And just to show its roots

That tree burst into leaves of orange

Calling back the star it once was.