Leaf Meal

I borrow this term from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who in "Spring and Fall to a Young Child," wrote of Goldengrove unleaving and of "worlds of wanwood [that] leafmeal lie." 

Here is my leaf meal — what is left of the Kwanzan cherry's foliage, which disappeared in a day. 

I shivered when I saw it, and not just from the chill wind that followed the rain (and which, paired with the rain, brought down the leaves). 

I shivered because looking at that bare trunk I felt winter in my face — and the single-mindedness of seasonal change.