Last Leaf Before Winter
Soul-tired from walking
the upward way,
she curled inward
like the last maple leaf
near the top
of a tapped elder tree.
Edges
fading
from flame
to brittle curl.
Those who remembered
the before
now rested
beneath fresh snow.
One harvest moon,
shadows
from
branches’
barrenness
grew
long.
She
let
go
a gentle breeze
carried
her
downward
rocking
whispering
hiraeth
In my own voice…
There’s a certain loneliness that comes when you realize you’ve become an archive. Not of objects, but of memories and sorrows tied to worlds that no longer exist.
My grandfather once spoke about what it felt like to outlive the people who shared his memories. Not simply grief, but the loneliness of losing witnesses. The people who remembered the same roads, kitchens, churches, and stories without explanation.
I think of that when I listen to my mother tell stories. How my uncle helped my parents move shortly after their marriage during the uncertainty of the draft years. Furniture tied into unreliable vehicles. Young people building lives with very little. How, years later, she cherished having her brother-in-law nearby again because he remembered some of the same world she did.
She’s told me about helping her grandfather prepare food for and going along with him on his grocery route, later driving him to the churches where he preached. Stories of the summer before her wedding, being called upon to cook for groups, and traveling from place to place.
But beneath the stories is something else I did not understand when I was younger, the exhaustion that comes from carrying so much life inside yourself. The weariness of watching worlds disappear piece by piece.
I think there are many kinds of loneliness. Not only grief, but the slow estrangement that comes when you’ve lived long enough, hurt long enough, or carried enough memory that you no longer feel entirely anchored to the world around you.
I’ve seen that weariness in older generations. Lately, I also recognize traces of it within myself.
Sometimes I think love is listening closely enough that another person’s memories, exhaustion, and existence do not vanish unnoticed.
There’s a labyrinth in the woods
made of sawed saplings,
but feral vine and moss
keep winding their way out.
The forest holds more than one wind. Treetops rush one way while the lower branches turn another way. Every layer of the woods is moving to invisible currents.
‘Last Leaf Before Winter’ Prompt
That line about the loneliness of losing witnesses completely broke me, because it captures exactly what it feels like to carry a world that only you remember anymore ✨
There is a quiet ache in this that feels deeply true.
Not only grief, but the loneliness of becoming the keeper of memories no one else still carries.
“Love is listening closely enough that another person’s memories do not vanish unnoticed.”
Beautiful line.