The sound of gentle endings

One fall day, on the street, I heard a different sort of rustle in the air than usual:  It wasn’t wind-whipped leaves rattling against each other; there was no breeze at all, not even a wave of a hanging leaf.  In this silence, what was the tapping, clicking, clickleticka-littlededipple I was hearing?

I looked  and around for my answer, and saw spinning, wafting leaves filling the air like fluffy snowflakes.

It was the leaves breathlessly coming to rest against pavement and settling on the edges of other leaves.I looked back up, walked over to a tree branch, and noticed:

Even without a gust of wind to yank it from the tree, each leaf has its moment to part from its branch and join the slowly drifting cascade.

I found myself mesmerized, and sad yet smiling.  It seems that autumn uses sound and motion, not just color, to make endings beautiful.

And then my dog yanked on the leash with a dog tag jingle I don't usually hear, and I left the endings behind.
I hope you use all of your senses as you engage with the world today:  not just the senses being stimulated most, but the ones that are not standing out today.  Smell carefully on a day with no strong scents, look intensely in the dark, run your fingers over a surface that seems featureless, and, as I did sort of by accident on this day, listen carefully when it's quiet.  You may notice something you never noticed that's been around you all the time.