A CARPET OF LEAVES

©2012 Pam Wilkie

There is a tree in my backyard that has the most unusual leaf growing cycle I’ve ever seen. It’s actually two trees planted side by side. The saplings were so small when I bought them, I didn’t see how one would ever grow big enough to provide the screen between my house and the neighbor’s that I needed it to be. So, I bought two of them. And my twins have thrived and grown up together into tall, strong, full, adolescents, their twin trunks joined only at the ground, each one going off in its own direction. They’ve been good kids, and have given me exactly what I wanted.

This tree is a Shamel Ash, a deciduous tree, and every fall I watch as a steady shower of leaves falls to the ground over several weeks until the branches are bare. Their colors are as vibrant and bright as fall colors should be. They lay on the ground, a carpet of maroon and rust, yellow and brown.

I look at them surrounding the twin trunks in a wide circle and I like it. I don’t hurry to rake them up or sweep them away; there is a beauty in them being there.

My hammock is stretched beneath this tree and many happy hours have been spent looking up into its startling seasonal beauty. I’ve discovered that as soon as my beloved has shed its old clothing, it begins almost immediately to replace it. Each limb has branches jutting out and each branch has smaller, more delicate ones extending out. It is on these slender branches that the leaves begin to grow. 
   At first they appear as strange clumps of green, mossy looking substance at the end of each branch, but upon closer inspection it is clearly not moss, but a fuzzy new-born leaf material. The bees love this stage and flock to the tree every day, all day, sucking out the nectar in the new buds. The tree literally hums with life during this period. I love it. Then, they’re gone. A new stage is beginning. 
   The green mossy looking blob starts to split up into individual five-fingered leaves. And, voila, there they are…perfectly symmetrical, mathematically correct, tiny versions of their predecessors. Each branch starts out with three leaves, then two more grow and finally another two appear. The process has begun anew; the circle goes around; the planet spins and life continues on.