A thousand drumbeats

My first attempted sonnet that was eventually published on the former site Every Day Poets and printed in the first anthology Best of Every Day Poets a few years ago.

A thousand drumbeats
(c) 2008 Terry Zimmer

A thousand drumbeats dance the ground
To say ‘Come play’; to me invite
A leave-taking that, heeded, might
For time a grief or worry drown.

A leaf, rain-felled, will quick a-brown
Unquick’d from branch that nectar drank
And will, with time, in brothers’ rank
Decay to crumb, no longer found.

Ah - when my last leaf is shed
The drum will halt, still-quiet.
A naked tree will rise undead,
And grasp the bright sun’s sky; it
Clothed with new leaf – so it is said –
Nor cares nor cries deny it.