Hello Stranger

How to look at a leaf and see the whole world

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, “Ultima,” 2023

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Friends,

Next time you’re feeling bored and don’t know what to do, go outside where you’ve got a good view of a neighborhood tree. Pick up a single leaf and look at it, really look at it. See the stem and all the veins that spread across its leafy surface. Hold it up to the sky and squint—see all those green cells drinking in the sun, imagine how it shared its light with the branch that held it. Twirl the leaf between your fingers, watch it sway. And then once you’ve gotten to know this small organ of light, once the blur of anonymity sharpens and you’re holding the only leaf in the world, then look up.

Can you hold onto that sense of intimacy? So that you’re no longer looking at a tree but all the singular leaves at once while everything trembles in the wind? When you’re done looking, recite a poem. Any poem will do, like this one from Lucille Clifton:

the mystery that surely is present
as the underside of a leaf
turning to stare at you quietly
from your hand.
that is the mystery you have not
looked for, and it turns
with a silent shattering of your life
for who knows ever after
the proper position of things
or what is waiting to turn from us
even now?

What is waiting for you? The poet doesn’t know, and maybe you don’t either. Instead, maybe you’re hungry. Maybe you did this leafy meditation on an empty stomach and you could really use a good sandwich. Put the leaf in your pocket, and walk up the street to the deli.

When you walk through the door, let the blur of this common deli come into focus. See the position of things: the receipt paper on the cork board, the plastic basket with stickers for small kids, see the small poster with tear-off tabs announcing the need for a bass player, see the post-notes from coworkers swapping shifts, see the yellowing newsprint announcing a local award and the napkin doodles near the register.

As you walk up to the counter, feel the leaf’s soft face in your pocket. Remember the intimacy you practiced, remember the wind. Do you see the teen behind the register, staring at you quietly? Do you see the way their head bobs along to the music? Do you see their sharp blue eyes? Do you see the tattooed ivy climbing up across a faint row of scars on their right arm? What waits for you when they share their bright smile?

Take care,

Michael

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“The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

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