The leaves, sometimes. The spirits, ghosts of the land, or invisible wind creatures throw themselves upward and spiral about like snowflakes in reverse. Tossed back to the sky, rejected by mysterious forces. The wind grows attached to them rather quickly, naturally the type to fall in love with a stranger, perhaps first drawn in by their various tints and crinkles- the green plump things massacred in the prime of life- the brown, wrinkled paper bag types, glorious in the sky, the greatest moments of their mundane lives. The wind does not discriminate, but that it leaves the pines alone.
The highest I've ever seen these wanderers travel was above the sixth floor of a high-ceilinged building. The leaves floated on the breeze like millions of tiny ships, filling the space between buildings like a rainbowy ticker tape parade. Maybe nature got exhausted from all the celebrating of the sentient creatures- the dogs howling with delight, panting, and dancing about loudly, the birds twittering away their life stories to an audience deaf to their meaning, the roar of the helicopter shattering the air, gloating that it has defied nature. We were confined to the land but we evolved! Look at me! Look at me! The blades scream and slice, murderer and the murdered in one.
The four elements seem not always able to speak through speech. Sometimes, they can roar beyond the abilities of machines or the slaughtered pig. The sky shakes or the earth quakes or the sea bashes against a hill. I think it must feel like it has to do this at times, throw a tantrum, because no one seems to notice how loudly it speaks with color.
I think about those children's games we used to play. You blow a long string of soap bubbles into the air and keep blowing from beneath to keep them from dying on the ground. It's an exhausting effort and always fails- you end up out of breath with a soapy nose.
The wind must feel similarly, if it does in fact feel. How much effort it must take, to throw those thousands, tens of thousands, millions of leaves into the air. If you can't enjoy the serendipity that goes into a rainbow, you might miss this other string of colors in the sky. Unlike the rainbow, though, they flitter and crash into each other, elegantly as though it were choreographed. Like a modern ballet.
And it seems like they must float forever, because they have to, you want them to. And, for once in your life, you wonder if the sentience is worth being grounded.
I want to float like those leaves. Not like an airplane or a helicopter or any machine. Not even like Daedalus or Icarus. Not even like a leaf, who gets crushed under feet and mashed into the pavement at the end of the flight.
It's all about glistening and being free. And those leaves get it, even if only for a few minutes. Guaranteed five minutes of glory.
Now, who wouldn't be jealous of that?
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