"Leaf by Leaf" by Rebecca Ziegler

"Leaf by Leaf"

Yesterday, at my feet,
an autumn leaf –
unique, breathtaking splendor:

flame-red, separated
from spirit-of-sun
by a jagged, glowing brown streak –

a Bradford pear leaf.
I nearly retrieved it
to press – to preserve its ghost.

But I thought again –
knew, in my scrapbook,
it would become its own pale shadow.

I passed there today
in a different mood,
gluttonously collecting glories

to press – a hint
of the season’s riches –
for ghosts are more than nothing –

my hands full of fragments
of the red-orange-gold shift –
individual segments of the spectrum

mottled, dappled,
streaked and various –
each leaf, uniquely marvelous.

But yesterday’s leaf
lay there no longer –
blown away, shredded, or faded.

When humans paint autumn,
they tend to impressionism,
laying on bright color in blurs,

or abstraction: color-fields
starkly juxtaposed,
barely discernable as foliage.

But God the Artist
(or Nature, or Whatever)
paints uniquely, leaf by leaf,

a radiance almost frightening –
so touched with splendor,
we soon look away, or generalize.

In despair of perceiving
their myriads, we snatch
at eternity, by painting or pressing.

God, unlike us,
craves no immortality.
God sees each leaf, then lets go.