They said that I was leaving them alone,
Yet this was the way I found them –
Alone, unattended in my perspective,
Their behavior unchecked,
Their resignation
Creating my own.
Some celebrate my leaving as spring cleaning –
Dead leaves dancing in the wind,
They forget that they cannot dance without it,
The stillness marks my passing now, the dead limbs
Remain.
They will fall eventually.

Some mourn my leaving as if I were ever there
Thinking that I am tangible, when
They will just miss my effect on them.
I know this as I know myself,
I know myself as I know the wind,
I am the wind.

Some have mistaken me for the tumbleweed
Rolling, independent it would seem,
Yet this is not so.
I am the wind, and the rolling you see
Simply marks my passing.
I was here. I was there.

I am gone.

I wrote this in 1996. I recall the day, re-reading this in 2023.