The Pain of Separation

It's like the old saying goes, you never know what you have until you lost it. It's a funny thing, love. There are so many different degrees and types of love. Some very strong such as passionate love, others moderate, like the love you feel for a distant relative or someone who has holds some small aspect significance  in your life. I believe that you can feel love for just about anything, people, things, places, animals; just about anything that you can tie such strong emotional attachment to. Passionate love is the most beautiful of all the loves. It's that love that you feel that permeates your dreams, that haunts you in beauteous glimpses of authenticity. As Pablo Neruda says, when you feel such love, beautiful things act as reminders; little boats that bring you to the isles of the object of your love. It is the kind of love that is in your breath, in your very heartbeat. You hear it in the rain and it is spelled out in the cascading light of the fading sun. It is the burning desire to feel not only the body, but the soul of the person that you feel it towards.
But alas, one can not always grasp the object of his desire. Sometimes it has existed in his life all along, yet was gone before he got a chance to fully experience it. It passes by as a leaf in the wind, seemingly weightless yet exuding it's delicate beauty. You try and grasp it, but the leaf has turned into an intangible vapor that is quickly swept by the wind and dissolved with the millions of other particles in the air. You search and you search, but your efforts prove futile. You have missed your opportunity.
You grieve the loss of the delicate leaf. You imagine it's path as it slowly drifted to the ground. It was there in front of you; ready for you to grab hold and cherish. You remember how time slowed as the leaf drifted by you, destined for a different path. It's path had been chosen for it. It was allowed some time to spend floating in front of you as you were given the gift of its fleeting beauty, but the changing course of the wind has swept away. It is on to another location in the beautiful world, to be swept across the night sky as a boat drifting amongst the sea of stars.
As the sweet autumn air fills your lungs, you must wait for another delicate leaf to fall in front of you. As you look up, you see many leaves around you. They fill the air in a beautiful dance of radiant color. You must sit, waiting. Waiting for the next leaf that is destined for you, the one that will sail gently within your grasp. You wait for the leaf that will remain in your grasp forever. You think of how much time this will take, but alas, there is no time amongst the leaves. Each operates on its own given course and mans attempt to quantify such movement proves futile. You do not dwell on time, rather, you meditate on the movements. Watch as the leaves cascade to the ground, feel the almost tangible beauty in the air. In a moment of perfect peace and serenity, a gentle voice reminds you that your leaf will come to you.