Finding the tenth cloud

I am a leaf. I am a leaf let loose in the woodlands of consciousness.

You can wrench your head high because you take young morning walks or meditate ascetically, or because you think you admire trees more than others, which makes you a nature-aficionado. But it doesn’t.

I am cemented in ticking time trying to fracture its walls. But in freedom, I fondle the falling mist and nuzzle with dirt.

Each new green-adventure erases my past green-adventures. This trip to the mountains, I saw that rolling hills are shades of shadows and light, mellow with ripe greens of great ups and lows. I saw that forest fog and clouds come close enough to kiss the vapor off of each other and disperse without a trace. I saw that if you whisper to a horse close enough and caress its neck, you can almost fathom how happy he is to be in the plateaus of home.

I am naïve —even if brown. I befriend the wind, the wood, the water and the wildlife. But perish with effluence. Without saying a word.

Velvety lavenders carpeted both sides of the road and ever-so-often a thread of delicate stream sprung down—whistling a white sonnet. The waterfall they all led to was rightfully its mamma—a roaring force of nature and a dangerously beautiful creation. The frigid waters were a reminder to leave no tracks behind but its gracious summoning came to be powerfully endearing.

I am desperate to be a wing of independence but once I’m on my own, I’m weak enough to trust a foe. I look out at the butterflies and the squirrels and cry inside because I can never survive on my own. Not long enough.

The only sanctity of these woods is that they are largely untouched—the self-sustaining, uninterrupted and breath-taking piece of the planet. The prolific soil and the fruiting trees and the hunting deers needed each other and every time one of them fell short because of external dynamics, the cycle was pricked. So I made sure. I came, I saw and I left no trace.

I am wet and loose and have my sides now gnawed out. But I lived a full live. I saw all seasons, I blossomed and fruited, and I contributed back to nature. Sometimes outside my will. It was only when I was snapped-out from my core, I realized that it was not freedom I seeked.