YELLOW LEAVES

YELLOW  LEAVES 

I walked a long time after I came out home. I started my walk towards….I did not knew where, passing through the park. Walking across the park, I felt the grass still damp under my feet, but I should say under my shoes. Feeling the grass you step on, walking on it___and your feet are inside your shoes___(feeling the grass) damp, wet, still drenched in rain, it is a sensation which I have never been able to explain myself, since I have always worn waterproof shoes.

After leaving the park I walked a long way down the three lined avenue leading to the station.

The avenue has no sidewalks, so I walked to a side of the street. Cars and other vehicles whizzed past me by swiftly, a gust of wind hit my face as they passed close by me. It’s a warm wind.

It’s autumn. Leaves keep on falling from the trees, twirling in the wind. There are also eddies of leaves which look like dancing circles. The fallen leaves, yellow leaves and burnt brown leaves, these already dry, are lying on the ground. The dry ones creak under my feet, I risk slipping on those yellow, not yet dry, since it rained a little while ago and they are wet.

There are carpets of fallen leaves in this season. The yellow leaves have always brought me joy. I can’t consider them ( see them) as fallen leaves, as leaves now dead. I see the sun in the yellow leaves.

Before leaving home to walk….I did not know where, I just wanted to walk among the yellow leaves, and feel on my face this air only a little, or rather only at times cold, mostly warm, even if it is a different warmth than the crisp spring air.

In the warmth of this autumn air, which in the countryside smells of ripe grapes, of fermented grape, also of honey, in this soft air, denser than that of the other seasons, in this still warm air, but which is gradually cooling down one can feel the heat of the fire lit in the hearth. And it can happen that in this autumn air you can see even the flames of this fire, the fire lit in the hearth.

Sometime looking up I seem to see this air, as if it were a bit pasty, ____it happens especially when the sun comes back to shine after it rained_____( I seem to see this autumn air) falling like a water fall, in which golden flecks are floating.

But before than I went out, when it hadn’t rained yet, I was sitting in front of the window , then I saw the sun setting fire to the yellow leaves fallen under the trees in the garden. The rays of the sun, which were of a very thin blue light, struck like lightning bolts the yellow of the leaves, and even the thin, ethereal flame rising up was yellow.

But that day___it was an autumn afternoon___when I kept on going along the tree lined avenue, among the falling leaves, the yellow leaves fluttering in the wind. It seemed they didn’t want to fall to the ground, where they would be trampled. The yellow leaves, fluttering, dancing in the wind , it seemed to hear them whispering, singing :”We aren’t dead leaves at all! You’re wrong!

We aren’t dead at all!”On, let someone try really to look at a yellow leaf, take it on the palm of his hand, smell it, pass it over his cheek! Ah, then he would no longer be able to consider them, the yellow leaves, dead, or, at least, destined to die in a very short time. That someone would be able to notice that, compared to the splendor of their full, dense, light filled yellow, the green leaves are pale. As if only they, the yellow leaves, had reached the perfection of a leaf.

It was an autumn afternoon, I was walking on the tree lined avenue, the yellow leaves whirling, rustling around me. I could hear their voice in the wind.

I had gone out for a walk, but without knowing where to go. Since the avenue led to the station, there are trains which arrive, trains which leave at the station. Maybe I was going to take a train.

Maybe there was a train waiting for me.

When I had come out of house I just wanted to walk in the warm, sweet air, cascade of honey, scent of grapes. I wanted to walk among the yellow leaves twirling in the wind, I wanted to hear their whispering, singing voice.

I was going to take the train_____There must be a train waiting for me, it is just waiting for me to leave___At this thought my step became faster, now I was running towards the station to get on the train which was waiting for me. I would have gotten on the train running, as if I were a yellow leaf too.

When I went out to walk, I had left behind me that stone face which starred at me impassively, which condemned me implacably, which could not accept that I could exist.

I kept on running along the avenue to get on the train which was waiting for me , there in the station. And I could not arrive, the way seemed to become longer and longer with each step I took, it seemed it would never end.

That petrified face which was looking at me from the window when I went out I still felt it behind me, as if it were following me, as if it were that which made the street grow longer and longer, to prevent me from arriving in time to get on the train. Oh, but the train wouldn’t have left without me…if it was there just for me…waiting for me, waiting for my arrival to leave. And it would have taken me who knows where….however it would have taken me far….I would have escaped forever from that cold gaze, implacable condemnation of that petrified face which was staring at me from the window when I had come out, which I felt was still following me, I felt it behind me.

 I kept on running faster and faster to arrive in time to get on the train which was waiting for me. I kept on running , staggering, like a yellow leaf fluttering in the wind.