Red Oaks Ending the Winter

You can almost hear them laugh, fluttering, frolicking,
spinning and dancing in the air,
celebrating the atmosphere, jaunty and rollicking,
staunch through the winter, now without care.

Red oak leaves hunkered down while their fellows went spinning;
weathered the worst that winter could deal.
Now they are reveling like contenders bold winning,
as through the spring air they merrily wheel.

"What's the joy?" you say, "Hitting the ground to decay?"
Have you never ushered the new?
With spring's other branches, their leaf buds display,
a new crop, stalwarts to see the year through.