Passage

A boy, perhaps 9 or 10 years of age, is walking with his father in a leisurely manner. The father's head is slightly inclined toward the boy, one shoulder tipped downward as they converse. A small family of rust-colored leaves lights like birds at their feet and then flies again, all of one mind. The episode passes in the seconds it takes for me to pass by on my bike, yet has not passed at all, for I have brought it with me. These little birds settle again on another soil--settle and fly and settle again, remembering a boy, 9 or 10, and a man, his father, walking, and a flurry of leaves lighting on the path and then rising to fly again. In such small ways as this, small ways in the millions, fathers and sons and loves never end.