Those autumn leaves

There are three, maybe four, fresh, new dandelion blossoms along the roadside ditch in front of our property. Lots of little butter and eggs flowers too. It’s a little disconcerting to see wildflowers bloom anew in October, especially when we may (or may not) get our first frost this weekend.

October’s oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half’s efforts to reseed the bald spots in the grass around the house looks like a success. Maybe I should ask her to see what she can do with a bucket of rogaine and my rapidly thinning hair. She has prohibited me from mowing until sometime next spring or early summer. The local pollinators should be pleased and, once I get over my middle-class obsessive-compulsive neatness disorder, I can get into a more natural look around the yard. I did spend some time clearing leaves and pine needles from the driveway, however. I live in fear of clogging and jamming the auger of the snow blower with wet leaves while tackling the first “plowable” snowfall or two of the season.

Today’s wind kept clearing more leaves from the trees and swirling them onto the steps and front stoop as I blew the accumulated piles down the drive. That situation is reminiscent of the quandary of whether to shovel / blow snow in the midst of the storm or wait until it has all come down. In the case of oak leaves, they’ll be coming down every month from now until next April or May, and I have no intention of waiting that long.

Finally, for today, I’m pleased to report that I’ve read from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass almost every morning of this Banned Books Week and plan to do so for awhile, perhaps until autumn actually leaves and winter arrives.

Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz     1941 – 

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don't die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since 
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you've probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You 
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. 
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
        or something you've felt that also didn't last.

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