11.07.08
Falling leaves
I was having a very busy day in the city, rushing from place to place trying to get all my chores completed before close of business.
Suddenly, I noticed a rather ramshackle entrance to a small park and decided to have a look. The park wasn’t very well kept, lots of graffiti, only one park bench and a small playground for children at the far end.
It was; however, full of trees and it was this that really drew my attention. There was no wind, the air was completely still and yet thousands of leaves were falling like a shower of snow. It was amazing to just stand there and listen to the ‘clicks’ as leaf after leaf released itself and fell gently to the ground.
This set me wondering. It has always amazed me how leaves could hold on no matter how strong the storm and yet when autumn came they just fell gently to the ground. I assumed, as I suspect most people do, that decay was the reason but now I’m not so sure.
Listening to all those ‘clicks’ I now think that there is a locking mechanism built into each leaf that is unbreakable but which, when the time is right, opens to allow the leaf fall away.