Looking around Brown County with a friend, the sky was clear and bright blue, the clouds looked like cotton balls, and bright colors and great weather was all around.
I look down and the water is muddy, some trash was floating from some previous fishermen. Then I watched as the wind blew the water into uneven swirls and all the leaves now falling were spinning and finding their fall in the beginning of a journey. The drying leaves, colors bright yellow and red, dunking deep then bouncing back up to the top of the water for a ride with waves against the muddy shore. Slowly, the water rested as it reached the edge of the grassy bank below my feet. Lap-plop, lap-plop, lap lap-plop. Moving a force of fallen yellows and reds, four leaves found each other in a slowing spin, dancing around as though attached in current force to one another. As their spin slowed to a paired waltz, their colors seemed to reflect a last burst of life and love, but a sense of a day in repast.
The beauty found me there, I took my picture, I closed my eyes, and heard the wind, and felt my breath. I saw the pairs float on down along the bank, still posing like a grand promenade onto the next port. A witness to beauty and perfect purpose in cycle, a dragonfly perched upon the two for a ride and stayed for a while. I closed my eyes and could still see the bright sun in the bouncing rays off the lake. I could still hear the wind, the buzzing of insects in living, leaves falling, and distant birds singing about their day.
sherrystruthtofiction 