The leaves came tumbling down

A gold maple leaf parted with its mother and glided down in a dancing motion to join its brethren on the ground; they all congregated at the base of their mother's trunk, as if waiting for something big and important to unravel. 

The desiccated leaves skirted around their mother, forming a yellow-brown crunchy blanket that rustled every time the wind blew. An unruly gust would sometimes, however, disrupt this sombre congregation. The gust would send them in disarray. And when it did, the leaves rolled all over the grass, hitting stones, trunks of other trees, cars and even young joggers' running shoes. 

On those occasions, the shrivelled leaves reminisced about the days when they were young, green and bursting with vigour -- the time when they lived close to the boundless sky, not on the soggy ground of autumn.    

The mother maple, which was green and strong even a month ago, was fading and growing frail. She seemed to be getting old faster than she should, adding five years to her age every passing day. 

Although you could still spot some strokes of lustreless green here and there, her once iridescent leaves were now mostly bronze, mustard, cider, butterscotch or medallion, a colour palette that was a gift to her from Great Mother Nature. 

But there was a time not too long ago when through her dense green leaves, I could hardly catch a sight of the lapis lazuli dome of the sky on a sunny afternoon, or the thin river that flowed through the public park behind her. With the arrival of autumn, that scenery was changing rapidly and I was beginning to catch a glimpse of the tranquil stream whenever I looked out my window; she flowed relentlessly in profound silence. 

Every time a chilled rush of wind cut through the air, the mother maple rained leaves; a rain of shrunken gold and brown leaves, which quivered before severing the ties with their mother. Each goodbye exposed her sturdy, grey and scaly trunks a bit more than before. By the end of each November, this majestic maple was totally bare and skeletal, not a single leaf with a serrated edge adorned its boughs and branches.

On a crisp morning of fall, I could see men and women, alone or with their canine companions, walking on the grass strewn with fallen leaves. If I kept my windows open, I could hear the crispy leaves getting crushed under their sneakered feet. In those mornings, the feeble mother maple perhaps wept in agony! But more agony awaited her. 

One brisk autumn morning, a young man came and broke the neighbourhood's silence as well as the dry maple leaves' peaceful congregation. He carried on his shoulders a gasoline-powered leaf blower, which droned every time its nozzle propelled synthetic air. At first, the poor dry leaves shivered at the sound, then they began to fly and roll about in the warm, manmade air until finally settling on the sidewalks. 

The siblings lay on top of each other in a pile, ready to be collected by the city's department of public works.  The leaves knew well by then that it was time to bid a final goodbye to their mama and their siblings, who still dangled from branches high above, still safe and protected in their mother's embrace. 

When twilight cloaked the city in blue and indigo that evening, I could hear the maple sobbing in misery; the misery of losing her children one by one. But I was also almost certain that she found solace in the truth that spring was not too many months away. 

And when the queen of seasons would arrive the city, mother maple would clothe in green afresh, her infant leaves clinging on to her and fluttering in the springtime zephyr.  

Photo: Collected