A melancholy dream

An image visits me out of the blue, a melancholy dream that comes to me while I'm wide awake; in it, I see my baby son in my grandfather's garden. The boy is barely two years old and it is autumn; he chases one falling leaf after another, trying to catch it in its flight before it can join its withered brethren covering the garden ground like a thick carpet. Late afternoon light of late October sifts through the few leaves that keep stubbornly holding on to their branches, forming long straight light sabres that pierce the crowns of the trees above and burns bright orange spots in the leaf carpet. My baby notices neither the melancholic beauty of his surroundings nor the silence of the world that has held its breath listening to him play; he merrily goes on with his game, as mindless of the history attached to this familial garden as he is of the struggles of manhood that await him in the world of tomorrow.