The step onto a leaf

A poem for Poets and Storytellers United The prompt is: What’s the most important step a person can take? 

The step onto a leaf

I stepped down from this world
where I had to be someone.
I shrank and shrank so small
I stepped onto a leaf
it floated across a quiet lake,
and the wind played an adagio
so loud, so tender,
it swept me off my feet.

Dragonflies danced,
skimming the silver skin of the water,
and their grace
touched the deepest part of me.
The fish leaped,
their splash a wild heartbeat
I felt so alive.

The beauty was too much to hold.
It pressed against my chest,
spilling past the edges of my being.

I grew human sized again,
but I was changed.
I no longer needed to own beauty,
no longer tried to scoop
the moon's golden spread from the lake.
I knew it would slip through my fingers.

Instead, I held the leaf
and its quiet wisdom:

You must become small
to understand the great.

And like the tide
we follow the rhythm of wonder