I saved every fallen leaf of the Tree of Life.
Some I left in the brown paper packet while some I used as bookmarks.
I liked them, I couldn’t part with them and so I still have them.
Days, months, spring, summer, decades n centuries…
They all went by and I kept hoarding each and every fallen leaf.
I had my favorites, I had my eye-sore.
Buried under the piles and piles of leaves,
I couldn’t see it then, what I can see now.
Once again, today I opened The Shadow Lines
And saw my favorite leaf in it.
The king of all, he was gorgeously green
And had the most marvelous contours…as imperfectly forming the human heart,
As the maddening Chris-cross of the veins running through!
I could bear with it falling off the tree but I couldn’t dare to part with it.
So I carefully placed it in The Shadow Lines and went into deep slumber.
I dreamt some one stole my dear leaf.
I was devastated, I stole it right back and tried to put it back on the tree.
Gum, tape, thread, clay nothing seemed to hold it there.
And there I was standing amidst the fiercest tempest like a mad woman
trying and trying and trying but to no effect.
Suddenly everything was synthetically calm and I took a breath of relief.
And as soon as I did that my leaf slipped out of my hands and flew away, far away from me.
I have woken from the light-year long, deep slumber and I opened my book today
just to ensure the presence of my prized possession.
I see it there but I see what I never saw before,
Dead, dry and rotten, infested
by a hundred million microbes.
A skeleton…...that talks to dead men.
