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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