Do you take time to smell the roses?

Do you take time to smell the roses?
Or do you past through life never saying hello or never smiling?
Never taking the time to engage in a conversation,
with a total stranger about the weather
or a newly read book.

How many new people did you meet today?
Did you smile at them or hurry past with your head down
and your eyes looking away?
Will they remember you 10 minutes from now,
or were you a leaf blowing in the wind of their existence,
insignificant?


Today I watched the leaves of a tree dancing in the wind.
Each one moving individually connected
to a branch, a limb to the trunk.
Each one part of the greater collective
that makes up the tree.

Do they feel or think or long for the day
that they can fly free from the tree
to flutter in the wind
not knowing where they going?

Maybe they will get lucky
and land in a fertile field
and become a sapling,
and grow old to become a majestic shade tree.

Or even yet maybe the leaf is destined
to land in a river
and float downstream to the sea,
where it will wither away
to become a building block for something new....