The lonely leaf

 There is a plant, a Ceylon spinach plant, right outside the window.  It wears hues of green. Many leaves grow on the stem, some on the right-hand side, some on the left, creating a pattern, an intentioned design. 

This is the plant I observed for twenty-one days. Each of those twenty-one days, I met the plant as if I am meeting someone for the first time. Our meetings were intriguing, rich, eye-opening, and more than anything else, they were lessons in objectivity. 

I could feel and clearly see life forces, growth forces, and death forces working upon the plant. On the leaves, the stems, nodes, and even the soil. The weather outside and the weather within me did not make a particle of difference in our meetings. I remember one foggy morning, the tiniest leaf of the plant was a thing of absolute beauty. Each thin vein on the leaf was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water. It glistened in the light and made a pattern of simplicity and mystery like a delicate cloud lodged right spang in the sky. I watched. I watched it again. Tiny beads of water inched away, slowly trying to join the next one. 

When I had begun the exercise, I thought, the leaf is lonely. It wasn't. Those dozens of water droplets inched away with mirth leaving the leaf blushing. 

I sing like the thrush

when they brush 

hush..hush..hush

I don't want to wake up the thrush

let them brush

in hush..hush..hush