Fall, You Know It As a Season

Over the last couple of weeks, I have observed the materialization of Fall. These observations have been geographically confined to the sidewalk fronting my office building, where, a couple of weeks ago, I began noticing the occasional falling leaf. Within a week, the infrequent falling leaf became a maelstrom of red, orange and yellow flying objects that painted the sky in streaks of vibrant color. Over the last couple of days those same leaves, once furious in their flight of descent, now lie dormant, dotting the ground – like blotches of some artist’s forgotten, neglected paint.

Yesterday, the leaves massed into a wet, squishy carpet that blanketed the sidewalk. Today, the leaves have all but disappeared. There are a few that still cling to their trees, typically on the bottom branches – looking like a receding leaf-line fringing a now bald tree. Soon, however, they too will fall, succumbing to Winter’s insipid breath, and only bare branches will reach for the sky, begging the sun for sustenance.

Until such time as said sustenance blooms into Spring, cold Winter winds will blow through now barren tree limbs, and I will remain grateful for my relatively warm roost down here in the South, beneath the Mason-Dixon, far from the blizzards of the mountainous northwest and the eight-foot, Great-Lakes supplied snow drifts of the northeast.