Sunday, November 5, 2017

Significance of a Fallen Leaf


Grief is foreign to the fallen leaf. If its death be
breezily regarded as the price of an existence
barely noticed to begin with, that would easily unite
it to the rest of us and every other thing that lives.

That it brings its photosynthesizing power to
the care and feeding of its mother tree and sibling
leaves as they give theirs to both of them and to
themselves is their collective task: that all the leaves

had wherewithal to starve them all by falling from
their mother’s arms en masse were they to suffer
blast by fire or toxic gas or virus or tsunami
wouldn’t be alarming to the Cosmos: the event

would only be what evidently had to happen
to maintain the balance of the here-and-never-was-
nor-will-nor-can-be-here, the autonomic fugue
and counterpoint of physics’ buzz and silence,

attending to the necessary generative violence
of guarding existential equanimity – on which
depend the burps and spittle of existence. The only
answer to the question Being asks is yes of course

beyond a doubt what else am I but you? – what else
but you is there to do? “Yeah,” you sotto voce say,
“but what am I to be?” Think it up and be it. No
need for a decree. But please consider telling me.


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