Morning Light Through Maple Leaves

Sunlight fragments into a thousand scattered coins across the wooden porch— each leaf a shutter opening and closing, opening and closing with the wind's breath.

I watch the pattern shift and resettle, this mathematics of shadow and brightness that no eye can fully trace, too quick, too quiet, too alive.

A maple leaf spirals down between us— still green, still wanting something from the air— and lands on the cold stone step where yesterday's rain has left its signature.

The light moves on. It always does. But something in me stays behind, counting what cannot be counted, watching what cannot be held.