The grand leaf

Some trees shed the greatest of leaves.

So grand you cannot simply pass them by.

You must stand and look upon them

as more than single sided.

Turn it over you will see hundreds of variegations,

leading you off into all sorts of directions.

Week 36. The other side.

I found a huge leaf while walking the other day, so big it reminded me of an elephant ear. I turned it over to inspect the intricate network of veins, much like those in the human body. This habit of turning things over I seemed to have picked it up from my good friend Clare. One day, while walking through a flea market together we came upon a pile of interesting fabric scraps. I pulled out a few quilt squares that caught my eye. As I was looking at the patchwork scraps, admiring the color combinations and textures Clare immediate turned each square over to look at the backs. She explained “the reverse sides are always much more interesting”. I had never thought about it like that before. We show the neat, organized self but it seems more important to notice the process of what it takes to get there, the stuff most people don’t see. This idea reminded me of a line in a play I saw recently. One of the main characters said, “It’s more important what we can not talk about than that which we choose to discuss”. It’s kind of the same thing when you think about it. Examining what we choose not to show is really the part that we should look at, how else can we understand how we are made.