What The Maple Said.

There is a pretty good sized maple tree boarding my back patio. I have been acquainted with it for 35 years or so, and have watched it grow both in height and width. Being one of the not so many deciduous trees in my immediate ken, I have always been aware of the spectacular changes that this friend goes through each spring and autumn. The autumn color change is very late this year. It is the last day of October now and the transition is underway.

It was a nice sunny day, and I was spending a little quiet time on the patio last evening. The westering sun was lighting up the crown of the maple with that wonderful soft evening light. The leaves, big, five pointed, deep green ladies which swing back and forth on their stems in the slightest breeze, were tinging with all sorts of shades of red and soft yellows which looked especially deep in this particular light. The tinging begins on the edges of each leaf and gradually moves into the leaf’s center. Lots of the leaves were at various stages in this process, and the tree, which is wide enough to practically fill my vision, looked stunning against that deep blue the sky gets toward sunset.

I was just sitting there quietly enjoying the beauty of the evening, when one of the more brilliant leaves suddenly detached from its branch and began to fall. It rotated slowly as it fell. It was sort of a melancholy thing, and I wondered if the tree was sad about the approaching loss of its leaves.

I heard an emphatic statement. “Not at all!” And I then noticed this space in the center of the maples canopy which was not quite in focus. It appeared to be shimmering, and I figured that was the source of the statement I had heard in my head. So, I asked it what that meant.

“This is a period of great joy for us. We have completed another round of service to the Great Plan. We are returning to our Mother’s store house of Life that which we used to make the leaves and grow our trunk and branches. We have cleaned much air, and generated much oxygen. We go through this fire ritual as a celebration of the Mother’s love for all that have lived in us and used our shade and beauty. We look forward to a period of assimilation and rest now as we prepare for the next round in the Great Cycle of the Mother’s breath. She breaths. We live. We serve.”

This little conversation has unhinged a part of heart memory, and a door of understanding has opened. Years ago I watched and old man come out into the alley-way that ran between our two houses every day in the autumn of the year and rake up the leaves that had fallen from a very large willow tree in his yard. It was a ritual thing. It went on for 3 or 4 weeks. He was absorbed in his labor, diligent, careful, and there was a kind of beauty and joy in the scratching rhythm of his raking.

I wrote a haiku that fall which I did not understand until now.

Wind rakes the Willow

Old man rakes the fallen leaves

Life rakes the old man