The woman downstairs calls the leaf awful. She says it was trying to get inside the door and had stuck itself to the door frame. It was as if the leaf, not unhandsome with its speckles of red, yellow, orange, had an attitude problem. She repeats awful full of disgust, as if this leaf should not exist at all, and most likely any fragment of stem, nut, bark, seed also tenacious in its presumption to belong would be awful too. I find myself picking up the leaf like a lost kitten and returning it to the garden … there you go … as I let it get on with its cycle of decay, always its plan before the door got in the way.
From: Vol.10 N.01 – Private: The Transformative Now
The Leaf
by
Cath Drake