Matthew Lyle Landsman

Where did this year go? Time for that matter? It’s been collecting in
the leaves of summer. Now its been captured in the autumn breeze…the
leaves and time have served their duty, now they will be captured in
the throes of a chilly fall, carried off on the breezes of evening and
passing hours while we sleep… Time isn’t lost at all…it just rests
in slumber at our feet, spent of livelihood, returning to the earth, to
the banks of tomorrows…recycled, replenished. Time can be a leaf
pressed between pages of a book, or a photograph in an album…

With the summer freshly behind us, the green leaves of spring are a
distant thing…but I still recall their rustling in balmy evening
breezes…as memories were being made…My barefooted trips thru the
grass…songbirds in the predawn hours…Now they lay at rest in the corner
by my porch…along the wall of my home…Like a pile of clippings and
memories waiting to be scrapbooked and catalogued…

While I rake…I shall recall the days…the moments that are freshly
etched even while the shade is laying in decay around my feet. If I
could leave them to meet the soil that nourished them to initial life,
they would replenish and richen the mother earth at the very place they
were given life…cradling one another…returning from whence they
came…reunited in an eternal embrace…in wait of spring after winter’s
slumber…Time in search of a taker, a user, a memory maker…

Autumn…its early autumn in my life too…after half a century, I’m
ready for longer nights and cooler days. The rings on the tree tell the
truth, the cumulative collection of yearly fallen leaves have richened
the soil where my shade trees dwell, made my knowing and memories grow
in kind…richer, deeper more meaningful. Where did time go? It lives
inside of me…life is more precious, hugs are more valued.

My time gone by and memories are captured in those autumn
leaves…Outside my house, they lie in wait…teasing me, taunting
me…conspiring along with a breeze from the south…each stroke of the
rake is laughed at as both simply carry the stack right back to the
spot I moved it from…Holding on for another day or two…the
metaphoric gathering of moments passed are reminding me to appreciate
the life I’ve lived, before I toss it away like so much fill and
refuse…

Its early morning…I just stepped out on a chilly porch with a hot cup
of coffee.

The winds that tormented us yesterday have moved on…the
leaves are at rest in places they were deposited during the hours they
frolicked in that very wind…Now, exhausted and finally having given
in, they simply lie in fragrant piles, saying one final good bye to
yesterdays, to hours spent under summer’s sun…to duty shading my
home, being a part of the symphony that plays while breezes fill the
air. And though the passing of time will dull the vividness of
individual memories, I will have a few scattered leaves to keep…in
the form of photographs, of theater tickets, gas receipts from several
states over…a faded rose, a shirt that smells still of her perfume
when she hugged me good bye.

I will think of these things, of the music, the extra cups of
coffee…the sunsets of May…and I will embrace them all, while I tend
to bagging and hauling those leaves to the place where so many leaves
convene…at the fill just a few miles down the road…

Then I’ll move mostly indoors for the duration of the cold season, in
wait of spring buds, of the return of songbirds and the first green
leaves on the branches and boughs…But I won’t simply wait till time
has passed, I’ll meet it at the door…and frolic in those breezes, as
did the leaves…once more…

Matthew Lyle Landsman…autumn 2009