Fall Leaves Up To Mischief

I jumped. Something on my face. It was a fall leaf, on its way back to the earth to be reincarnated into future generations. I looked for the culprit  but couldn’t find it. It had blended nicely with other leaves on the ground.

I laughed at myself. We are so cocooned in four walls that we are clueless about nature although we march with banners with the message STOP CLIMATE CHANGE.

The season is called fall because leaves paint themselves in different colors and fall, but we don’t include ourselves as part of the metamorphosis. They fall on grass, roads, rivers, cars, anywhere, but not on our faces. How about the wind? Yes, fall leaves whip us when it is windy, the same way blowing store attacks.

That’s why that single leaf on my face startled me. I was too scared to notice its colour, although I must admit fall leaves go through a series of colours before they disengage from trees. My reaction is a reminder of how we distance ourselves from nature.

We don’t know our environment, not like the leopard that sits on a branch and monitor the comings and goings of possible prey. We talk about nature and the environment in a TV remote fashion.

We click when we want to know about the monsoon, but people in countries like India have a personal relationship with it. We click when we want we see a desert but quickly get bored and go to the fridge for bottled water.  

We drink half and throw the bottle in the thrash can. People who travel through the Sahara and Gobi know where they will get the next water, so have ways and means of surviving without it for days.

They are not startled by a grain of sand, the way I did when a fall leaf kissed me.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.