Monday, November 5, 2012

autumn viewfinder

 The grim sun hides and the shadows are black as dirt, yet in the soil something is growing still. A prickly green arm stretches out, half-smothered by fiery leaves, the burning effigies of a dead spring. It is a weed, a plant most hated by humans who delude themselves into taming nature, but fragile and feeble as it is I cannot help wishing it well. With an effort of small struggling perseverance it reaches out its awkward spiny leaves to embrace the sky; it reaches past the corpses of past seasons, past the clouds, to beg the sky for life… 




A leaf lies naked, still on the ground like a street child, its arms streaked with mud. Veins glow white upon the blood-coloured skin. Without a home, it shelters in the dirt day and night, huddled in the company of others that are blown its way. Though it has little strength left the stem, which still holds itself stubbornly straight. Washed halfway under the shelter of a small, more alive plant, it lies motionless, waiting for another gust of wind or water to carry it away again. 



 

I watch the drowned leaf, though it is motionless now. The veins fan out from the central stem, which juts up towards the clouds. Rain gathers in small bubbles on the plasticky skin, clear water intruded upon by specks of soil which muddy its purity. Some dirt has been washed into the crevices of the pale veins, wedged into place like beach sand that dries onto sun-warmed toes. Though leaves and light are muddied and fading, the scent of wet autumn is still warm and clings in the air, rich as chocolate drunk outside in the cold.

1 comment:

  1. Ahhh (♥ó㉨ò)ノ♡
    The first one, I like the best. "Burning effigies" and people who "delude themselves into taming nature"! Oh, so beautiful.

    ━(○´エ`)(´エ`●)━

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