It was winter, and —
    the middle of the deepest winter;
And the last leaf had finally given up on clinging to its branch, electing to make its final solitude upon a storm drain covered in week-old snow.

Water rushing underneath.

A reminder from the murky canal below: “My dear,
You may soon perish, but, even after death, you —
    brown and crisped dry by the wind;
You will still have a ways to fall.”

And the last sounds this leaf heard,
    as its consciousness faded
    much like its chlorophyll had already gone,
were:

The screams of its damned brethren
Being swept out to sea as they decayed.

And as its life faded before it,
    it mustered one final thought:

God, I have learned
Never to complain about being reincarnated as a cat.