something autumnal for kim

“The best leaves are always at the top of the tree.  Everyone knows that.”
 
Paul and the others laughed as they walked away.  Lee could feel the tears welling as he crumpled the bright yellow leaf in his hand.  Why did Paul always make the things he liked seem little and ugly? He’d show Paul and the other kids.  He’d get a perfect leaf from the top branches of the tree.
 
Lee slowly made his way up the tree, grasping and pulling himself up, branch by branch.  Staying close to the trunk the climb was still scary but beautiful.  The bark against his fingers was rough and made his skin raw.  The leaves around him were the color of fire, orange red yellow, moving in the afternoon breeze.
 
He couldn’t make out the words the wind whispered, but Lee knew that something so great must have something to say.  One day he’d learn all the languages to all the great things like the wind and the oceans.  The tree too must have a language.  Maybe it was the way the branches and leaves moved, or even the colors they changed.  Lee would learn that too.
 
The branches were getting thinner the further he went up the trunk.  Lee was afraid if he went much further up the branches would bend and break.  Looking down he didn’t see the ground anymore.  The crowd of branches and leaves blocked the view.  He felt like he was high above the earth in a windowless room.  All he could see was the color of autumn.
 
Maybe he *was* autumn.  Climbing deep into the branches and leaves he had become one with the season.  Lee took a deep breath of the spicy fall air and held it for as long as he could.  The sound of his heartbeat pounded under his skin and the breath of the wind and the shuddering leaves got louder around him.
 
Lee let go of his breath as slowly as he could, but still his all too human gasp broke his autumn spell. He was not autumn, he was just Lee.  The leaves here at the top were beautiful, but just as beautiful as the ones closer to the bottom branches. 
 
He had found a place though, a place of quiet and sound, of color and ease.  This was a place he’d remember and return to within his memories.  This was perfection.