What is leafmeal?

29 Jun, 2022

Probably you've been asking yourself, "what is leafmeal?" Or maybe you haven't, and you just assumed it was salad, which would be disappointing and also wrong. Leafmeal is far more than a few scantily dressed leafs. It's a word with over 140 years of history. It represents death, decay, a thousand unmourned struggles, and the suffering at the heart of human existence. Leafmeal is rebirth and it's the earthy smell on a dusty summer morning. Well perhaps not by the dictionary, but it's all these things for me, since I first heard it read aloud in a high school English class.

Leafmeal is the product of a 17 year old mind that wanted a unique and catchy handle that probably wasn't taken already. We all know the strict requirements: unambiguous, easy to spell, fun to say or curse in an online chat, and of course, unique. I searched high and low, translating funny words into foreign languages, trying to find something with a good ring. Finally however, in the words of a 19th century poet I found it. Leafmeal.

I don't know too much about Gerard Manly Hopkins, but he did get a few things right in my book when it comes to poetry¹:

1. He rhymed
2. He understood meter (mostly)
3. He used cool words, and wasn't afraid to make them up (e.g. leafmeal)
4. He was a sad boi
5. He rhymed In Mr. Bishop's 12 grade literature we broke down what, at first, felt rather impenetrable. Nonetheless I was intrigued as all but #4 above were apparent on the first read. As it's public domain, I'll include the full thing now.

Spring and Fall

    to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

If you like, read it again. What's happening here? Narrator is talking to Margaret. Margaret cries because the golden leaves of the once lush trees are falling to the ground. You or me? We're insensitive to such sights. Such quotidian deaths are unremarkable. But Margaret sees them with her youthful innocence.

Narrator warns that Margaret too will grow numb to this, despite that "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie". This is the best line of the poem (though all are good) and is (unsurprisingly) my favorite line. The world is full of death. Beneath every unremarkable step we take—in the very ground on which Margaret mourns the fallen yellow leaves—are countless millions of leaves from before. Everywhere we go death is inevitable, inescapable. These falling leaves have made their mark on Margaret, and though she will very soon prance through them without a second thought, she has felt the first touch of our fatal curse.

Sure, Margaret has mourned leaves, but she has felt something far deeper. The true reason she mourns goes unsaid, unthought. But her heart has felt it in these fallen leaves, and her spirit feels its first pangs of existential dread. Margaret, you are mortal. This is the greatest tragedy. It is the only wound than cannot be healed.

To me, leafmeal is a reminder of the omnipresence of death, but also the new life it gives. It's a reminder of mortality and existential dread, but also hope and innocence. It's a reminder that beauty can be found everywhere, and that there is meaning even in the rotting leaves beneath our feet.