The Fallen Leaves
Yesterday, I walked through the forest just as the day’s light was dwindling, its brightness slowly fading, causing the woods to look like a worn sepia photograph. The trail had lost its familiarity as brown dried leaves covered the worn path. The temperatures recently plummeted and all but a few leaves had dropped from the deciduous trees that dominated the oldest part of the forest. A few weeks ago, this area was bright and full.
Now, the forest looked drab, lifeless; empty.
I continued down the trail, mesmerized by the sheer number of leaves on the ground. They carpeted the forest floor in every direction for as far as I could see. How many leaves were there? Millions? The withered leaves crunched loudly under my footsteps as I worked to recognize anything in the landscape that would help me navigate.
The light was almost gone, and the beams that cut through the forest had disappeared. As the temperature sank, a thin veil of fog formed over the landscape. The translucent haze formed in small pockets, looking like ghosts floating through the dark forest.
My eyes strained to follow them in the dimming light.
Like the slow-moving fog, my mind drifted to a different place and time. Suddenly the forest looked like the scene of a medieval battlefield, each leaf a fallen soldier lost in a war to support the tree. Should we mourn the loss of the leaves? Or should we celebrate the life of the tree?
Fall is a beautiful season, one which draws us to view the changing colors. Like spectators in a giant colosseum, we cheer their end. Maybe we find beauty in the bright colors; maybe the leaves inspire us to become more expressive as we march steadily toward our own end. Or, maybe, and more likely, we feel nothing for the leaves, because we see the tree is alive. In spring, new leaves will replace the old and the cycle begins anew.
And what about human beings? Are we not each a single leaf on the tree of human life? Yet, when we experience loss, it is difficult to find solace in the lives of others, even knowing that each will face their last season. Life outside of our circle feels like a stranger: disconnected and suspicious.
Perhaps the leaves, unable to think, do not feel this loss. Maybe this is the price we pay for our intelligence. Or, maybe this is nature’s gift to us, her wisdom in knowing that we can only see one thing in relation to another. We could not recognize light if all we knew was darkness, and, likewise, the pain of loss shines a bright light on the beauty of living; the rareness and fragility of life.
We are all leaves on a tree, some budding, some green, others ripened in bright yellows and reds. When autumn arrives, we will float to the earth on a cool breeze, until we land on the ground, fading into rich soil that feeds the tree. Humans and humus are different forms of the same thing.