I watched an entertaining show the other day. 

     On a solid, smooth log in the forest, I took my front row seat and settled in to enjoy the action.  We are in the middle of fall, that aptly named season when nature reminds us that death too can be beautiful.  For several weeks past and for several more to come, the leaves on the maples, oaks, hickories, and others are letting go into death, their work of capturing sunlight and nourishing the trees complete.

     I looked about me, enjoying the forest’s calm that always soothes me.  Then my eye caught the movement of a dry, curled form, broken loose from high above and drifting down, wafting a little this way, a little that way, until it reached its resting place on the ground.  The course of the leaf’s fall reminded me of lightening;  seldom does it take a direct route to its destination.

     A few moments later, another leaf began its descent.  I watched as it lazily made its way down.  And I laughed out loud as it landed on its edge, perched there for a moment, and then fell over to lie flat, unmoving, among its fellows.

     No fair!  Now two leaves were falling at the same time!  My eyes, darting back and forth in my attempt to watch them both, focused on neither, and I missed out on really observing either one.

     Looking up, I noticed a curled leaf falling from a high chestnut oak branch.  But after only a few yards, the oak leaf’s journey was halted prematurely.  Catching in a tangle of leaves still attached to a branch below, the leaf will rest there awhile, until a breeze comes along and sends it on its way again.    

     Very near my log I noticed a shrivelled red leaf bobbing near a tip of a twig extending from a tiny, young red maple tree.  But the leaf was not even attached to the twig!  It appeared to be fluttering about in the air, all on its own!  Only when I got up and peered closely at that space between the little dancing leaf and the tip of the tree could I see that the thinnest of filaments was holding the leaf in proximity to the tree.  Was it a spider’s thread?  I don’t know, but it held the leaf firmly, despite all the leaf’s shaking.  This leaf too would have to wait to reach its final resting place.

     The sight of the dead leaves making their unique journeys to the earth was accompanied by another pleasure–the sounds they made.  Sitting on my log, I sometimes heard a light scratching sound as a leaf brushed past other leaves or branches on its way down.  And when the newly fallen leaves reached those who have gone before, on the ground, the sound of their meeting was dry and soft, a pleasing whisper.

     So I sat and enjoyed, waiting for the next leaves to fall.  Then I heard the sound of rain on leaves.  There were enough of them still fixed to the branches above me that the rain drops didn’t reach me.  But then the rain picked up the pace, and I heard the drops tapping on the leaves scattered around me.  Then I too started to feel the rain, on my head, on my hands.  It was time to go inside.  The show was over, at least for now.–April Moore

Artwork below by Aliki Mikulich

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.