The Indicator x The Student: “Autumn Breeze”

I went to the forest so that I could remember.

To the forest that is nearing its yearly dying and shedding its million leaves about the soil, the bodies of once living things. I decided to go on the day your favorite maple tree became bare and surrendered to the seasons. For a month I had been watching from our bedroom window, seeing how the first spots of yellow flowed into the leaves and how the autumn breeze eventually plucked them away, freckling our backyard with red. The day was clear, still a little warm, and joined by a gentle wind.

There’s a trail that passes by our backyard and down the hills, past the point where, looking out from behind our house, the world seems to drop away. I take my time, using smaller strides than I need to. A habit from all the times you would tell me to wait for you while we shuffled down the steep slope. My feet slice through the layer of fallen foliage and send leaves tumbling earthward. I still feel you a couple strides behind, your hand reaching out to my shoulder every now and then for balance. When I reach the place where the path evens out near The Pond, and I feel the wind rushing through the trees, I hold on to my scarf because I can no longer hand it to you.

The Pond in the late October forest is swallowing up the last sighs of summer. An old birch tree casts out another yellow flake to ripple the water’s surface. I stop and stand at the sandy side of the shore while the setting sun casts gold on my face over this cloudless evening. Through the glare, there are the remnants of an old stone building, still like a watching owl, just beyond the wreath of trees that circle the shore. We never explored it. You said that it gave you an uneasy feeling, like we would be disturbing someone if we came too close. Our years of keeping distance seemed to push it further and further into the trees, like a fortress of our own creation. But today it doesn’t feel the same. The ramparts we built amid the trees have crumbled. Because of you, or in spite of you, I want to know what’s there that you never got a chance to see.

It looks like a church used to stand here. A smattering of stone bricks traces the original cross-shaped foundation, and little of the walls remain intact. The forest no longer yields to the space where the building sat, but the canopy still remembers the old steeple that rivaled the treetops of oak and maple, with a narrow shaft of sky reaching down to touch the spot where worshippers once prayed. Saplings, some almost shoulder high, now line the pews instead. I tread carefully so as not to break their silence.

Only one structure persists among the rubble. The corner where two walls meet forms a little peak about eight feet high, with slumping sides like the flanks of an Appalachian peak. I find myself stepping up the incline, my arms outstretched for balance, pushing back the outstretched fingers of the surrounding trees to make my way up. When I stop at the flat spot at the top and look down at the forest floor, I realize that I’ve taken for granted how high this wall could take me. A strong gust strikes at my back and, for a moment, offers to send me tumbling headfirst into the stones. Even so, I set my body down and dangle my legs off the wall. It’s getting cold. The sky is washing away its yellow stains for mineral blue.

I look down at where my right hand is gripping the wall. A single maple leaf pokes out from a crack in the stones like a dandelion defying the asphalt. But instead of its original curved plane, the leaf has been folded along its veins into a sort of paper fan, catching the air and waving to and fro. It’s peculiar … in the heart of a forest only crossed by faded footpaths, past the edge of a village where the mail only comes twice per week, some soul had taken the time to come up to this little wall and place a piece of their memory there. They took one of the millions of leaves and made it into a monument, to be shaken by the wind until it eventually returned to that flaky dust of a decaying autumn leaf, and spread once again amongst the soil. I think you would appreciate knowing that this exists. Maybe you already do.

I left my own leaf atop the wall that day. An oak leaf had gotten caught inside the top of my boot. I take the lobes which looped out to either side and fold them inward, like outstretched arms, and gently crease the spine forward and then backward so that it leaned back and hailed the sky. There’s just enough space left between the stone bricks beside yours, and I shove the stem down until it doesn’t give when I gently pull back with my fingertips.

A deep twilight is beginning to set over the horizon. As if the Earth were breathing its final sighs before falling asleep, a great gust falls upon the forest, and both leaves writhe amid the tearing gale. I fight the urge to take them with me, keep them somewhere safe, but in my heart I knew that it wouldn’t be right. It seems necessary that you have chosen this place for your maple leaf, and I want to join you there with my oak leaf for however long that time and the winds allow. I quickly turn away and start back down, so that even if this union proves fleeting, it will last forever in my memory.