As far as the eye can see stretches a barren forest. I laid on the forest floor and used the fallen leaves as my mattress. Looking upward, the blue sky is in stark contrast to the black spindles of branches. The sky is always a more vibrant blue in the winter; maybe it is rebelling against the cold. The leaves are brittle and cold to the touch.
The dead leaves are a reminder of the time that nature runs on, circular time. They mark the end of the current cycle, but without a doubt new life will be brought with its death in the next season. The cycle repeats infinitely. In the dead leaves, nutrients reside that are essential to plant growth, and they will be used as resources to prepare the soil for next season’s plants. If nature’s time is circular- than mine is linear. My timeline begins with life and ends with death. The fleetingness of seasons feels deceptive to me. It is my life that is actually fleeting in comparison. The confrontation of my linear time on Earth with nature’s circular time overcomes me with existential dread.
Nature is very efficient, and the dead leaves littering the forest floor serve an important purpose for the forest’s ecosystem. Through the decomposition of these leaves, the soil is replenished with nutrients. Other organisms begin to physically dismantle the leaf. Saprotrophic fungi, which are fungi that eat organic matter, are the main decomposers of leaf litter. They have special chemicals that help break them down. Once the fungi have weakened the leaf membrane, insects like slugs or roundworms eat at the leaves for food. As the leaves slowly decompose, their nutrients essential for plant growth, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus seep into the soil. The critters and fungi help to break the leaf litter down into a form that the soil can absorb.
A few weeks ago, the leaves were red, yellow and orange. Chlorophyll, a green pigment that helps plants photosynthesize, had been dismantled in the leaf. As the sunlight diminished over the course of the fall, the tree sends the leaves chemical signals that it is time for Autumn. Trees are efficient, they have no use for leaves when there is no sun to photosynthesize with in the bleak winter. The green is gone, and this allows for other colors that were hidden in the leaf to have their brief moment, until they brown and fall off the tree.
I reach my hand through the pile of fallen leaves, each layer becoming damper as I touch the soil. The pile of leaves traps in moisture for the soil, keeping the soil fertile against the harsh winter. At the bottom layer I find leaves that were remnants of what they once were. They are only identifiable by their veins, creating an outline for me to fill in and imagine what was once there. This is a tell-tale sign that the leaf was affected by disease, and then whittled away by critters like worms and slugs.
The ending of the current cycle of nature is desolate. The foliage that was once on the tree has been abandoned and discarded on the forest floor to rot. As uninspiring as winter may appear, out of death comes life. The leaves that are being slowly absorbed into the dirt will be used as nutrients for the next generation of plants. Death is necessary for nature to start its next cycle.