Incandescent

I can't remember where I was recently when I came across a small tree barely holding onto a few last leaves, the small and papery lance-shapes hung straight down from petioles barely attached to their leaf axils, each leaf gradiating from the palest yellow at the base to the slightest wash of pink. Each leaf hanging in that windless moment promised to disperse as delicately as a breath calmed by peaceful sleep. These last leaves that fall now, the ones the wind keeps corralling in front of my door step along with people's discarded tissues, plastic bags and cup lids, heave down in tons of the most delicate sighs, the last sigh of the season, a sigh that feels loaded with the pain of heaving back towards so much beauty.