With no conscious plan

Why, in the stiff west wind that sends bright leaves scudding
along the dull grey pavement,
Why is it those leaves?
Why do some leaves stay still and dead
as if only a hurricane
would lift them to fly off like aged butterflies?
And how we are like that too.
Some of us are blown away by a mere puff of tobacco smoke
Others are stuck to the earth to live,to die where we were born.
And see now the patterns change
as the wind drops and the flying leaves
descend again but onto a new terrain,
resting for a while with the curmudgeonly stuck grey leaves
before another breeze takes them off flying past the chestnut trees and into the schoolyard….
where boys,mad with stiffness dash about
themselves a little like the leaves
forming shapes and patterns as they run
with no conscious plan
then the bell will ring
returning them to rows and columns
like an army platoon seated at child sized desks
Waiting for their orders.
The sky is not blue today
Yet the flowers smell so sweet they enchant me
as I tread carefully in my blue boots
across the dangerous damp flags
into the Pharmacy by the big trees