DAILY PHOTO: Low Tide Tree
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A leaf falls, spinning as it drifts downward. Then, for an instant, it seems to pause in the air before continuing to drop, twist, and flutter. I question whether the leaf stopped, my mind stopped, or the universe stopped. Probably, nothing stopped -- a mere momentary balance of updraft and gravitational pull, an unstable and ephemeral equilibrium, like a spontaneous retention of breath -- usually missed before it can be noticed, but just this one time, I was witness. a falling leaf seems to pause in air, and I am there

soft petals,
tumbling & swirling
in a light breeze
The landscape is strewn with boulders, its topography formed from piles of them, its flat fields dotted with them. These boulders are the remnants of a once mighty mountain -- an ancient mountain. People stand in awe of those rough, angular slabs of granite, standing a mile high. But those are the young whippersnappers. This mountain is so old that it's just a pile of bones, devoid of connective tissue or fleshy covering. It's a corpse of a mountain that has half buried itself. the ancient mountain is now bone-smooth boulders its age unsung