How I Think It Happens

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash

I have fairy tales on my mind this week. And the aliveness of all of nature. As I was staring out the window this morning, I started making origins stories about the leaves and the trees. Here’s a draft of one.

Three new red leaves appeared in a cluster just this morning.

I know how it happened.

They come at night — they climb the tree like squirrels

(only they don’t make any claw-noise)

surprise the sleeping green

(cold puts the green to sleep.)

So easy then to push away and settle in for a while.

Push the green through stem, twig, branch, trunk, root,

then fully underground.

In the cold dark the green stays sleeping

until it gets pulled awake again in Spring,

when the branches are tired of being cold all the time.

Over weeks, the green yawns and stretches out

into their full and luscious glory.