Jackson Mettler The Fallen Leaf

A man sits alone in the autumn wood Though the wind whips its way through the trees A frustrated jockey Lashing out, relentless, He is still, Shielded from the cold Not by attire But a disembodied concentration A disregard for physical being Concerned, instead, with a force Cutting far deeper than the wind And with much greater intensity

A cold no coat can negate Thorn insoluble Illness Debilitating A thief Making off with the hope Of recovery A shattered, ironic existence A life bereft of meaning

Pulled to and fro by gusts of wind The buoy moves with each wave No attempt to resist The wind fills his nostrils Tugging at his tightly shut eyelids Seeming as if to say “Wake Up” -UnyieldingA man possessed By single-minded focus Fueled By the hollowing fear Of not finding Of never finding Salvation from this existence Shrouded in loneliness and futility A cure for this disease Possessing the strange ability To numb the senses And wear away at the soul Leaving only the hollow pang Emptiness. From deep within Primordial bells ring out Filling every moment with their screams

Making vague attempts To extend his mind Outside the limits of his skull Reaching out for something Anything Greater than himself Desperately traversing the ether Only to run, face first, Into the walls of his own consciousness Or rather The paradoxical nature Of venturing outside the bounds of the self, The self, one’s only guide

How to see what cannot be seen? So limited by the eye Can one ever look to distant planes Or find something more Than what is rightly available? For as is the nature of that which is not It is not

The wind howls in his ears Lashing out with greater intensity Buoy thrown back and forth Pummeled by successive blows Unable to resist the strength of the waves Until finally, Anchor dislodged, Being cast upon the shore. His eyes open, Silence.

The now-quiet woods dissolve into his unfocused gaze Awareness ripped From the plane of abstraction Once believed infinite But clearly Just as limited as the body he now returned to

A single leaf catches his eye Falling some ten yards away Or rather, drifting A passenger on the still air Landing directly in front of him

Time stands still in the silent wood As the man takes in the fallen leaf Seeing first its shape, Sugar maple Its dark color, Signaling the changing of the seasons, The coming of winter He reaches forward Feeling its rigid edges And with such grace Does the hand close around the leaf More resistant in death than in life Though far less resilient

He studies its fragments The sensation of their genesisCrunch -Still fresh in his mind Wafting up from his hand The smell of cider Reminding of days spent far from here In time as well as space Of Small boots Stomping through the woods Alongside two pairs quite larger And later, Large boots Professing love to a pair Lost to time The man shuts his eyes Hiding from the woods their red hue Staring again at his hand And, perhaps for the first time, He sees. Eyes alight over the surrounding landscape The trees, the grass, The leaves, Once mere symbols for interpretation The world a book Laboriously read for the sole purpose Of extracting some knowledge, Discovering some theme, Now taking life of their own

For perhaps it is not farther outside What is rightly available, But deeper within it That one is to find meaning

If the world is a book Then maybe, The act of reading Is not merely a means But the end in itself

Maybe, It is within the intricacies of the fallen leaf That one is to find salvation

The man stood to leave Knowing he now held the Truth Walking triumphantly, Though with each step A pang of loss The chilling certainty That it was not his to hold

And the wind whistled through the woods once more