Soul Perching
By Genece Hamby
Perched on a sharp ledge over the creek’s rugged bed, tonight I just witnessed a solo leaf navigating grace as it floated carefree to ground. The tree that cut him loose looked as if he had shook away most of his leaves; the others had fallen into the blush of autumn’s decay.
I was an independent observer of this Haiku moment. No one was there to catch the profound beauty that was deeper than any daily desires. My solitude beneath the surface listened to the breath of the evening’s wind and smelled the pungent aroma of death.
Losing myself, rolling waves moved through me as infinite reserves of fullness. Underneath, the invisible resonance recognized the piercing moment that passed and will not ever come again. The highest quality of thought allowed the magnificence to stretch itself over this sanctuary of divine stillness. From here, the world vibrated back an echo -- an echo that when in quiet, I was able to hear the distinct note of my truest essence. I heard my own central rhythm pull me back graciously into the song.
While writing with the moon’s half glow shadowing the creek’s pocket lining of twigs and leaves, a small flicker captivated my attention. It was a light, no bigger than a fairy’s flame. Where was it coming from? Holding onto a limb, I walked down the rocky terrain to get a closer look. What I saw was the reflected moon – one on the water’s surface and the other just below. Etched and recorded onto the witness of my soul was this moon in three places all at once. Colliding in my mind’s eye!
It seemed that the beauty hid unseen --waiting for an appeal directly from the inner most well of my heart. Tonight, I surrendered the enrapturing moments, where the silent song spiraled up and returned as the connecting point for everything around me. I quietly noted with no other witnesses that my essence held the key to what was glowing bright from inside of me.
Getting up to head home, I hear her. Her melodic whisper muted by the fallen leaves. At first, I thought how odd to hear a faint cry; a song of melancholy coming from the ground cover. I thought, “Does earth mourn its own decay?”
I stepped onto the tarred path taking the song with me. Upon entering the house, I quickly sat at the computer to write about the crimson colors claiming their winter’s rest. Instead, I heard soft wailing noises outside of the atrium door. Now I could hear them all – the falling leaves lying on ground, the change of frosty colors bruised from biting air, trees standing vulnerable with no clothes, earth itself hardening its surface in preparation for winter’s cover.
One-by-one, they were speaking to me of the coming winter and their place inside of it all. I listened without words, without thoughts. I was suddenly one of them and together, we sang the song of autumn’s lament – allowing the fullness of their falling into grace in order to return as the connecting point for nature’s equilibrium.
And, I shall allow my spirit the same fall into aerodynamic grace that sheds the leaves of my soul in preparation of winter’s claim.
Genece Hamby
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