To Die is Gain

In school today I taught my students
why leaves change in the fall.
The book I read to them says
the green drains out,
revealing the other colors;
the reds, yellows, and oranges
were in the leaf all along.
And so the leaf does not gain something
in order to be red, it loses something,
like the statue hiding inside
the block of marble.
Maybe I should shrink,
shedding skin, snake-like,
refined, dross-less.
Maybe I should stop wanting
to be so big,
because at my best,
half of me—the green, the chlorophyll, the envy,
will be gone.