Aunt Leaf ....

More skeletons from our garden, magnolia leaves. To complete the process of decay I must immerse them in bleach solution for a while, finishing nature’s process which I interrupted when I found them. They will come out white and fine, no shred left of the finery of their flesh. I haven’t the heart for it.

I am a Great Aunt several times over, and adore all my little ‘greats’, nephews and nieces both. But I don’t like the title. In Scotland I believe I would be a Grand Aunt. There is nothing inherently wrong with the words Great and Grand, but somehow when coupled with Aunt, they take on an aged connotation. I saw some of my adopted great nephews yesterday and their Dad was humourously encouraging them to append the Great to my Aunt. While my husband was christened by the boys ‘Uncle B’s Daddy.’ Why couldn’t I be Uncle ‘B’s Mummy’? Much nicer sounding than Great Aunt.

So today I came across this imaginative poem by one of my favourite nature poets, Mary Oliver. Now I am not so averse to being a Great Aunt, if this is what I can do…. Watch out boys, Aunt Leaf is here ….

Aunt Leaf

Needing one, I invented her -
the great-great-aunt, dark as hickory,
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear Aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker -
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish - and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.


Mary Oliver