Anyone who has stood at a river long enough has felt change stir within.
Yes, the water is always moving.
Here, your mortal feet will never be caressed by the same stream twice.
It takes time for water flowing in one direction to flow again over you.
But in your travels, fortunate wanderer, you may happen again
upon the same drops in a different body.  

Can the same be said for trees?
Deciduous or not, all lose their leaves in time.
And can the leaf you admire today be seen again in your lifetime?
Not in the same form.
It falls, my dear,
past the bark to the waiting litter below.
sustaining again.
Becoming eventually.

In the meantime, our failing eyes
watch the tree react.
Big enough it is to draw our attention.
How many strikes can it sustain?
How many fires will it survive?
Countless, my darling.

For when it fears,
for when it just may cease to be,
it does not leave its potential unharvested grain,
but digs deeply.
Widely into the earth, the tree gives
to the network it has always been a part of.
Leaving, we know, enough of itself
to be found again.