Hanging By a Thread

In the morning, when I return home from my walk up and down the Walhalla ravine, I water the outdoor plants. A week ago, as I was stretching the 100 foot garden hose to it’s full length to reach the bed of scarlet impatiens in the front yard, I spied a desiccated, shriveled brown leaf dangling in the air at eye level, suspended by one gossamer filament; just one long spit of spider silk attached to the tip of a bony, leafless branch. It twisted ever so slightly and slowly in the soft summer breezes. It is a phenomena I’ve seen before, a magician’s trick performed by Nature. Nothing miraculous but exotic enough to warrant a close inspection upon which I imagined that this particular leaf resembled a brown paper ghost on a stick. Having sufficiently marveled at this apparition for a few seconds, I proceeded to complete the ritual task at hand.

The next morning, it was still there. Despite its precarious existence in midair, it continued to defy gravity, refusing to become just another fallen leaf lying on the lawn. I was impressed that something, so fragile that it was vulnerable to a mere gust of wind or drop of rain, could survive to repeat its feat of prestidigitation for another show, another day. And the next day, it was still there. My son had come out to help me do the watering and I showed him the amazing floating leaf. He was amused but only took it as an opportunity to immediately try to destroy the illusion by bringing it crashing down. He cocked his head back, stretched his spine and waived his hands in the air but unlike a carefully constructed castle of sand or a tower of colorful wooden blocks that he delights in demolishing, this leaf was just out of his reach.

When I returned again to find the leaf still floating, I wondered if I should see it as a post-less sign on my path insisting that I take heed of some warning. It did remind me of a device I often use in my Valentines of suspending a symbolic red heart in a space near a real world object, like an ear or a brain or a stop light or a broken window, depicting the metaphorical connection I was making between passion and the subject of my accompanying poem. I didn’t need the dangling leaf to warn me about the fragile and ephemeral nature of my existence. Lately, every time I walked the ravine I focused on being aware of the moment I was in, worshiping the beauty of the sylvan cathedral with sky blue stained-glass windows and a choir of crickets I was moving through, comparing my invaluable freedom to that of an imprisoned criminal or my relative health to those afflicted with a disability, thinking of friends and family who had passed away and no longer had a consciousness of the sparkling stream of life that I continued to walk beside.

It had been about a week, the simple beautiful mystery of the weightless leaf had withstood a couple short summer showers beneath the green canopy of my laid back mulberry tree, so I finally decided it was worthy of being memorialized by photographing it with my cell phone. Later that afternoon, I was reading a book in my screened-in porch when I became aware of the rustling leaves in the front yard trees sounding like applause and then realizing that it was the percussion of another summer shower briefly moving through. After the rain stopped, I decided to check on my insubstantial friend and discovered that it had taken its final bow.