Shards of Falling Leaves
There's a big 'ol grandmother poplar outside the Hospice office window. She has stood her ground, deeply rooted, next to the Stoney Creek for countless decades. She is my mentor...
One of the stories she whispers from within the cool fall breezes is about leaves.
In the early spring, before the nights are warm and as the days lengthen, she wakens from her winter slumber. Sap rises, and the first stirrings of rebirth are witnessed in the swelling buds of new leaves. She dares to hope, dares to believe through winter's grief, that life might continue.
Against all odds, the buds unfurl to reveal the fluorescent green of soft young leaves. Her joy is ecstatic as one by one by one they unfold, covering her in a cloak of brilliant verdence. The weeks ease by, June morphing into July and the heart of summer. The leaves have changed, deeping in hue to the darker green of mature foliage. The soul of this great grandmother poplar rejoices in being nourished, and in turn nourishing each and every limb and branch, twig and leaf.
The weeks slip by and soon cool autumn evenings invite the harvest moon to spread an early frost. A shiver runs down her limbs as the first tinge of gold touches her cloak of green. A leaf falls, gently drifting to the ground - tree tears, and soon she is in awe of the bronze, copper, yellow and gold that adorn her every branch. Even as she cries out in wonder, though, her heart shrinks back in grief at what is to come. Soon they will be gone, and the life which she shared with her emerald mantel will soon be a memory.
The last leaf is ripped from her in the grip of a winter storm and she is left bereft. She dared to love again, to taste hope in spring's viridescent promises of renewal, of communion.
In her sorrow she recedes to a place at once forlorn and familiar. She goes into her roots, her being flowing down to dark places where grief will begin its slow transformation of her being.
Dark, cold, slow, unknowing, uncertain, alone.
Until... with the coming of early spring, before the nights are warm and as the days lengthen, she wakens from her winter slumber and dares to Love again.
Ah, grandmother - your tears and your joy mingle in the telling of your tales.
We take but one breath in this life - a startled inhalation at birth, and a slow exhalation at our death. In between - is beginnings and endings, birthings and dyings. Grandmother poplar teaches the way, how to hope, how to live, how to grieve. The rhythm of our breath, in, out, is the rhythm of starting again, of rising from the dark ground of our sorrowing to reemerge into this world of prasine wonder.
Life and death... it is who we are.
Something to ponder...
Living amongst the shards,
B
