Pardon my reveries . . .
On a Labor Day hike, I came across this singular orange leaf. The calendar gives us three more weeks of summer, but here, I thought, was a premature sign of fall — this one orange leaf in a field by a river. It seemed to beckon me, with its striking color, so I took its picture — the first fallen, and fallen too soon, from the mother tree. It was a leaf dying, relative to the life cycle of leaves, before its time. As Jim Croce put it, in a song about loss before his death at age 30: “Isn’t that the way they say it goes?”
Forgive this clumsy, melancholy metaphor. It became lodged in my brain. A full day after being drawn to it, I was still thinking of that singular leaf — first fallen and fallen too soon — and probably because I think, at some point any precious day, of classmates and friends who never got a chance at a full life. I think of a brotherhood unfinished, and other people I loved and lost too soon. I thought of Housman’s laurelled athlete and Joyce’s Michael Furey, and Gretta weeping for that boy as snow fell on his Galway grave. I thought of a young high school teacher, vanished over a summer; a wise mentor, gone at 34; my good friend Dave, and a girl named Jane. I honor them by remembering them. I left the orange leaf where I found it, in the grass below the mourning mother tree.
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Dan Rodricks 
Thank you for this poignant tribute to our losses and “the way we were” (as sung by Barbara Streisand).
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Dear Dan, you might turn this into a poem, or extend it into a play…we too have a MotherTree in our yard…not yet divesting of her leaves…but we wait, with haulted breath.
But don’t be too sorrowful, it is it not in the order of things that we germinate, blossom, and in due time…die…and then is it not then on the next germination.
Every time now, at my age of 86, that one of our garden trees, hedges or plantings set-in with care and effort, wilts and dies, it seems that it is a metaphor/sign/symbol of my own increasing vulnerability.
As to those folks, so important to our ongoing history and life then and still now…there is not enough space/time to identify and remember them adequately…a sad realization.
Be Well, stay well…and write…
Edward Haladay
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There’s no way to respond to this piece. It stands very, very tall on its own, higher than the tree…
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This is for sure a keeper….. 💕💞💕
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Beautiful statement, Dan. I read and reread and then got lost in my own thoughts of people, pets, ideas, movements, etc. that have fallen too soon. There are many mourning trees in my life. Thank you.
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Just lovely. Our losses float up as we march toward the end of another year, don’t they? But in the Spring, we’ll remember those fallen too soon with a sweeter pang in the lengthening days.
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The teacher, the mentor and the girl named Jane. Who were they?This is a wonderful piece. I could feel the leaf missing its view from above and the mother tree lamenting the loss of her offspring. LLSent from my iPhone
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