One morning, I watched a girl gluing leaves on a tree outside the old man’s house. The tree, he’d said, should never be bare. The tree, whose leaves had withered and fallen, scattered across the garden’s floor like a golden veil soon after his passing. She heard it crying at night from her bedroom window. Its voice far away, yet it would enter her dreams and disrupt her sleep. Enough so that she wanted to make it feel whole again, comforted and loved. I wondered what the old man meant. If someone must care for the tree, ensuring its branches were always filled with leaves, or did he mean nature would do its part? A marcescent, in which the tree would sustain its leafiness from season to season, never shedding through years of new growth. His tree, a favorite home for the white crown sparrows, yellow rumpled warblers, and house finches to savor a safe landing during a winter’s rain. The girl sang as she stood in a skirt of leaves, picking up each one by its finger-like stem and carefully gluing it back to the crown of the tree. She waved the glue like a maestro conducting her song, the long, thin paintbrush dropping excess below— ants and debris coated with a thin film of stickiness in a coverlet of pearl film beside her feet. I worried about the fallen leaves being too brittle, dried out, and lifeless. If they’d crumble and drift through the air like tiny particles of death despite the girl’s efforts. This might have been her whole life’s story; it was that noble of a gesture. I didn’t want to tell her how futile it was, that soon, the tree would be empty again. But The girl could sleep while the tree paused its tears, showing gratitude for her kindness, knowing it was the best she could do―though soon she heard it, weeping again. So, she glued a picture of the old man on her window, a drawing she’d made one afternoon while he was admiring his tree. And the tree stopped its tears and became hearty and full of foliage, and the girl
was able to finally sleep―and somewhere in a faraway place, the old man was grateful that his life, even in death, made a difference.
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