Leaves are pressed between pages because we just cannot handle saying goodbye to them even if just for a winter. So we thin them out and capture the red or green which turns brown and the ends perm but even in February you can visit that leaf and touch its skin and tell it about the time you found it on a sidewalk so calmly sleeping beside an ant and chicken wing and you will say that it was its shape that caused you to remove it and bring it home. You will tell it that it looked like a dream you once had about spider webs in bathtubs and a sun dripping from a tattooed sky and in your hand, it looked like it was smiling. In April, you will remove that leaf from old journal and tell it about the time you fell in love so deeply it was as though you and love were constantly climbing trees, jumping from branch to branch to the scalp of where the tree itched most. And you built and you ate and this leaf will listen and understand because it was once in love too.
Spring is here now, it will whisper through its softened veins. And you will find more of me.
But then you will say: But none like you. Because you have been pressed so close to my words for so long there is no need for speaking sometimes. You just rub my body like Braille and know my movements.
The leaf will bring you back to that sidewalk where you first met. You will notice no ants nor chicken bones. The trees are still nude, but slowly budding. You will notice a yellow daffodil to your left. It is so bright, you squint and the leaf jumps out of your palm and toward the earth.
Be inside this, the leaf says. Walk along a new block where leaves will soon grow. Wash your eyes out; get ready for their colors. They won’t stay, so memorize and be in their moment while they remain for you.
Aimee Herman 