newsletter 4-10

“It all depends if you stay with me,” Ole replied. “By day I look at you and admire your beauty. At night I sense your fragrance. Be the only leaf on a tree? No, never!”
“Ole, your words are so sweet but they’re not true,” Trufa said. “You know very well that I’m no longer pretty. Look how wrinkled I am, how
shriveled I’ve become! Only one thing is still left me– my love for you.”
“Isn’t that enough? Of all our powers love is the highest, the finest,” Ole said. “So long as we love each other we remain here, and no wind, rain or storm can destroy us. I’ll tell you something, Trufa– I never loved you as much as I love you now.”
“Why, Ole? Why? I’m all yellow.”
“Who says green is pretty and yellow is not? All colors are equally handsome.”
And just as Ole spoke these words, that which Trufa feared all these months happened– a wind came up and tore Ole loose from the twig. Trufa began to tremble and flutter until it seemed that she, too, would be torn away, but she held fast. She saw Ole fall and sway in the air, and she called to him in leafy language: “Ole! Come back! Ole! Ole!”
But before she could even finish, Ole vanished from her sight. He blended in with the other leaves on the ground, and Trufa was left all alone on the tree.
So long as it was still day, Trufa managed to somehow endure her grief. But when it grew dark and cold and a piercing rain began to fall, she sank into despair. Somehow she felt that the blame for all the leafy misfortunes lay with the tree, the trunk with its mighty limbs. Leaves fell but the trunk stood tall, thick and firmly rooted in the ground. No wind, rain or hail could upset it. What did it matter to a tree, which probably lived forever, what became of a leaf? To Trufa, the trunk was a kind of a god. It covered itself with leaves for a few months, then it shook them off. It nourished them with its sap for as long as it pleased, then it let them die in thirst. Trufa pleaded with the tree to give back her Ole, to make it summer again, but the tree didn’t heed her prayers.
Trufa didn’t think a night could be so long as this one– so dark so frosty.

The forest was large and thickly overgrown with all kinds of leaf-bearing trees. Usually it is cold this time of year and it even happens that it snows, but this November was relatively warm. You might have thought it was summer except that the whole forest was strewn with fallen leaves– some yellow as saffron, some red as wine, some the color of gold and some of mixed color. The leaves had been torn down by the rain, by the wind, some by day, some by night, and they now formed a deep carpet over the forest floor. Although their juices had run dry, the leave still exuded a pleasant aroma. The sun shown down on them through the living branches, and worms and flies which had somehow survived the autumn storms crawled over them. The space beneath the leaves provided hiding places for crickets, field mice and many other creatures who sought protection in the earth.
On the tip of a tree which had lost all its other leaves, two still remained hanging from one twig; Ole and Trufa. For some reason unknown to them, Ole and Trufa had survived all the rains, all the cold nights and winds. Who knows the reason one leaf falls and another remains? But Ole and Trufa believed the answer lay in the great love they bore one another. Ole was slightly bigger than Trufa and a few days older, but Trufa was prettier and more delicate. One leaf can do little for another when the wind blows, the rain pours, or the hail begins to fall. Still, Ole encouraged Trufa at every opportunity. During the worst storms, when the thunder clapped, the lightening flashed, and the wind tore off not only leaves but whole branches, Ole pleaded with Trufa: “Hang on Trufa! Hang on with all your might!”
At times during cold and stormy nights, Trufa would complain” “My time has come, Ole, you hang on!”
“What for?” Ole asked. “Without you my life is senseless. If you fall, I’ll fall with you.”
“No, Ole, don’t do it! So long as a leaf can stay up it mustn’t let go.”