Leaves

20 September 2008
1402
Mill Stream, Willamette University, Salem, OR

I am walking back from class along side the Mill stream between the auditorium and the library, the weather is cool and the sun is hidden behind a wall of clouds casting a gray hue about the campus. I pass by the white adirondack chair perched on woodchips beneath the maple tree and i see a loitary palmate leaf lying on the grass. The leaf is laying there inverted the pale underside gleaming upwards with 3 beads of dew shining like tiny little mirrors. The beads of due are like perfect little bubbles magnifying the veins of the leaf with to a perfect scale, it is just like holding a magnifying glass up to your face, distorting features oddly. I pick up the leaf and the beads run off into my outstretch hand the mirrors are gone now and the leaf curls up to cling to itself and I look at it from eye level, the veins are far less visible from the outter top guarding its vulnerability. I walk on a little bit further and see several more leafs dotting the sidewalk, a few have perfect rings of water around them almost like ripples, it is a beautiful sight, so simple.