A LEAF FELL

This one time we went up to Algonquin Provincial Park in late October hoping to experience a few good days before the first snowfall. Fallen leaves lined the trails, and the Aspens and Tamaracks were beginning to turn a golden yellow. We hiked a number of trails including one of my favourites the Spruce Bog Boardwalk Trail. It's a short, very easy trail to hike starting off through a spruce forest, then crossing the Sunday Creek Bog before reentering another spruce forest that leads to a small kettle bog. It's on the way to the small kettle bog that I find very interesting. The ground cover in this area consists of sphagnum moss, lichens and various species of fungi. Peering down onto this maze of plants from the boardwalk one can easily let your imagination run wild, and envision another world, a world inhabited by tiny creatures. As I peer into the maze I'm reminded of the sci-fi movie Avatar, and a moment in my life experienced when just a boy wandering the fields and forests that once existed near my family home.

A Leaf Fell

There was a time, one lazy summer day when still a youth, I went exploring.
I roamed through fields filled with golden grasses, and wild flowers.
I watched as butterflies flittered, bumblebees bumbled, and honey bees buzzed here and there.

Beyond the golden field a forest grew
its darkness dampened sound,
and from the top of a tall, old, tree,a leaf fell
and drifted lazily towards the ground.

An errant breeze caught the leaf before it struck the ground,
and swept it high up in the sky where it caught the wind,
and sailed away, an adventure just begun.

I wondered as it sailed away,
does a leaf, when it strikes the ground,
make a sound?

I came upon a  path less worn
that travelled through the darkened wood.
I stood, wondering, then slowly ambled in.

It was quiet in the dark, dank, wood.
Not a sound.

I looked around, my eyes adjusting to the darkness in the wood,
and came upon sights I’d never seen.
Toadstools, moss, and ferns of every sort
lived deep within the dampness of this wood.

I got down on my hands and knees, and
peered beneath the ferns.  Everything was tiny, a completely different world.
Snails, millipedes, spiders, and beetles, movement everywhere.

As I watched I wondered if those who lived within,
would hear a falling leaf as it struck the ground.

I continued down the path less worn leading deep within the wood,
exploring, observing, listening,
until the crickets, sang their evening song.

Doubting that I would ever go back, and wander down the path less worn,
I made a note, a memory kept, and stored away,
a reminder of a wondrous time, spent
one lazy summer’s day.

EAS