Agreeing with the Leaves

Let’s start this off with a lesson, the one contained in this poem by Lucille Clifton:

The Lesson Of The Falling Leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

What we need right now, well, what I need, is more poetry. What I need is the sudden rush of the world. I need to remember the good and lovely and beautiful.

Any Common Desolation

by Ellen Bass

can be enough to make you look up
at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few
that survived the rains and frost, shot
with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep
orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird
would rip it like silk. You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive. The sound
of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant
animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger.
The ruby neon of the liquor store sign.
Warm socks. You remember your mother,
her precision a ceremony, as she gathered
the white cotton, slipped it over your toes,
drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath
can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard,
the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything
you dread, all you can’t bear, dissolves
and, like a needle slipped into your vein—
that sudden rush of the world.

{source}

Our gardens are lasting longer here in Edmonton than is often the norm. My Facebook page has been filled with photo-memories of past years with snow and frost but we’ve yet to experience either so far.

One day this past week, I was sitting, then, in our backyard and it really did hit me in a “sudden rush of the world,” that “it isn’t nothing / to know even one moment alive.” And yes, our hearts by now are broken, but maybe that’s the prerequisite for knowing those moments when they come. Let them come. Let the leaves come, let them go. Let’s believe the leaves, as Clifton says.

The book though that I was holding that day was Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing. All of the dogeared pages ready for emergency reading.

“When hatred with his package comes,
you forbid delivery.”

And aren’t these words very poignant right now?

“If you are Lucky
You will grow old
and Live
a life of errands.
You will discern
what people need
and provide it
before they ask.
You will drive your car
here and there
delivering and fetching
and neither the traffic
nor the weather
will bother you
in the least.”

etc.

You know there are times I have thought it would be okay to send out some good vibes, a kind of secular prayer of sorts, to the unvaxed, at least to those sitting on the fence, a little unsure. And maybe the above would suffice. You know, may we all live to go out on boring errands, and live our boring lives, our beautifully wonderfully boring lives. May we all continue to see another fall, and another one, and to feel that rush of being in the world, so profoundly, memories swirling all around us, beauty, light. And may we know merely common desolation, minor griefs, rather than cataclysmic sorrows, massive losses, horrendous sadness. May you enjoy your daily tasks, and when hatred with his package comes, do as Leonard would, and forbid delivery.

– pair this post with another titled On Beauty or Is Your Life Burning Well? or even Who By Fire?

September 28, 2021