“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
—Matthew 23:12
I am the last leaf at the bottom of the sky.
Heaven seems to end just where I begin.
The last breath of angels just where I first inhale.
A leaf I am.
And shall always be.
Forever.
And ever.
I shall never grow up to become a tree.
Not even a twig.
Leaves don’t do that.
Not a tree. No, not me.
But I am changing colors now.
Just like the sky that seems to end right where I begin.
Just like the sky when the sun comes and goes,
or is it me spinning away from all the light I will ever see
but then—always—spinning back again?
Red, yellow and orange are turning my green inside out.
Just like all the rest.
The leaves that have fallen before me.
Green together at the bottom of the sky
until the sky began to paint us with its colors of dawn and dusk, heaven brush-stroking me in ways I never dreamed possible. The sky always listening.
The sky always there.
Even in the darkness when I cannot see a thing
and I whisper leaf words toward where I believe the sky to be,
hoping heaven will hear me
even though I am just one leaf.
Even though I am not a forest.
Not even a sapling’s dream.
Even though I feel my roots clinging fiercely to the earth at the same time the wind seems to give me wings.
I am flying in place.
Going nowhere.
Being somewhere already.
Right where God put me.
A leaf until I finally leave.
And that is enough for me.
Angels—somehow—all around me.
Ken Woodley 