The Leaves Let Go

In March The Great Silent Voice spoke, “Time’s Up…release without remorse.” As if on cue from The Conductor, the Let-Go Chorus responded.

Last year’s leaves from the island water oaks had run their course. Their grip on the Great Mother relaxed, and one by one, without complaint or coaxing, they began their short but final journey “home.” Mission accomplished. Their job complete, the transients collectively headed south for their permanent rest.

For a brief few days the oak Titans stood naked, their spindly skeletons exposed. Sunlight shone profusely below, and as if The Great Silent Voice again spoke,”Make haste,” the vegetation beneath sprang to life, knowing somehow its hour in the sun was short.

Nature is a restless, but highly organized process. It makes all appointments on time. Hard on the heels of the leaves’ departure small green nubbins, barely discernible to the eye, begin incipient life. Almost overnight the oaks emerge clothed, garbed in their new wardrobe.

But back to the fallen leaves, those that have now carpeted the sandy loam soils below. The Great Silent Voice softly spoke again to these fallen workers, “Sleep on, rest easy…you have served well, and it’s time for another. To cling beyond your appointed time would result in a dull, lusterless relic of the past ~~ a tragic antique of a bygone age. To remain would retard the growth and defile the clothed majesty of the forest Titan.”

Leaves never talk back. They consent that new life requires them to move on. They’re innately schooled in photosynthesis, knowing that when their green morphs to brown, their ability to synthesize food is terminally impaired. They’ve become useless. Sad, but true.

If oak leaves could think, would they have a self-esteem problem? They’d look around and see billions upon billions of other leaves, and perhaps say, “Of what value am I, one among so many, and a little one at that?” And if the Mother Tree could answer, “If not for each of you, I could not exist.” Is this answer sufficient to solve a self-esteem problem? I wonder. After all there is a time and a season for everything.

Sometimes I think I hear the whisper of the Great Silent Voice speaking a tender assurance to the leaf, “As you were not anxious in the day of your birth, be not anxious in the day of your death…well done, good and faithful leaf.” Optimistic to the end, I smile in contemplation of the leaf’s “Let-Go” ~~ its first and its last. How noble an act!

And you know what, I’ll bet it’s one helluva ride down…I can hardly wait for my own noble experience!


Bud Hearn
March 19, 2009