a leaf on the wind

the horrors persist but so do the trees

photo by matthew ball

I.
The maple tree across the street is shivering. Just this morning, she’d stopped my breath with the red flames of her leaves. Now I watch from the kitchen window as brutal gusts shred her gorgeous coat and dash the scraps to the ground.

My eyes stay fixed on the bare tree while my mind cycles through its litany of election dread, terror, and despair. I feel immobilized and powerless against a catastrophic, onrushing future. I feel every violation in history—personal, national, and global—crashing down on me at once.

With great effort, I turn my attention back to the tree. I can be a witness for her, if nothing else.

II.
A few days later I find a comforting echo, centuries old, in the work of haiku master Kobayashi Issa:

the red ones
get torn off first...
autumn leaves

Beneath the English text the translator has left his own commentary, far less comforting:

Sometimes being pretty can be harmful to one.

As if there is no perpetrator, save the redness of the leaf.

III.
Look for the places where you do have power, my therapist says. Look for ways to do something. Look to your people, and art, and music. Look to the trees.

IV.
A brilliant bloom of color sways at the edge of my peripheral vision. I go to the window again, but this time I tilt my head. More bare branches, more broken limbs, and then—a shimmering, three-story wall of gold. A linden tree, fully leafed, lush and bright and exuberantly alive.

The sight of it lifts my scorched heart and gently turns it over. I want to bathe in that color. I want to know that feeling.

I excavate my only yellow shirt from the bottom of a drawer, tie a yellow bow in my hair, and grab my keys.

The moment I walk out the front door I burst into delighted laughter. The linden is spectacular—and one of so, so many. From my walkway I can see a half-dozen dazzling yellow trees of at least four different species.

I spend the next half-hour greeting every gold tree on my block, marveling at their height, their richness, the way their leaves applaud each other in the wind.

Each tree, each leaf, and each yellow is different. Every last one astonishes me.

V.
What happened to my maple tree* is real, as is what’s happening in America, and around the world. My life and the lives of so many others—all of us, I would argue—are in grave and legitimate danger. My terror and despair are justified. Unspeakable horrors are unfolding.

Other things are unfolding, too. Things I couldn’t see with my petrified gaze locked in on a single tree. Beautiful things. Joyful things. Tender, mighty things, reaching toward one another.

---

Hey: Thanks for being alive with me. I am so, so glad you’re here.

---

*Yes, I know that trees naturally lose their leaves in autumn. Try telling that to my traumatized poet brain. The topmost leaves changing from green to yellow on the maple tree are also my first indication each year that summer—the worst season for my illness—is ending, so I’m pretty attached.