The Leaf, the Girl, and I

Anastasia Podgornaya 26'

The river from my childhood flows before me

Here, on these muddy, grassy banks, 

I would sit and play  

I sit down, once again, to relive that life

A leaf floats by on the water

An ant crawls up my leg

I want to stay here, to protect this for however long I can

Protect what? I ask 

The leaf? The banks? The little ant?

The echo of a child’s dream that flows away from me

in tandem with the river?

I watch the leaf drift past me, 

I want to save it,

I want to pluck it out of the water,

But I cannot, my hands are glued to the riverbank where I sit

Helpless I watch, as the leaf floats further away

‘I wanted to help you’ I think to cry out

A hand picks the leaf out from the water

A child’s hand, pale with youth 

And bruised with carelessness

‘You can’t do that’ I tell her

‘Why?’

‘You can’t save the leaf’

‘Why?’

She holds the leaf cradled in her hand.

The most precious jewel in the entire world,

And it’s safest in the palm of a child 

‘Why?’

‘Because’

Because I am the leaf, 

And the water, the muddy river banks, the little ant

I am the child who plucked the leaf out from its journey down the river

And I am the girl glued to the riverbank, who had watched the leaf float by