mums rainbow

blowing in the wind

Watching the tree branches swaying out the window,
The fall weather chill is blowing its way into our lives.
The maples are turning, too soon all the trees will be stripped bare.
The wind begins to pluck the leaves and litter the ground below.

Already the nights are longer than the days.
The dark season is arriving, the bitter cold will follow.
Most mammals in this northern clime will hibernate.
The trees in their way hibernate, too.

Autumn is gorgeous. Winter has a crystalline beauty.
But a cold house makes for cold bones
And a retreat to huddling under extra covers
And an interminable wait for the spring thaw.

Today is beautiful, seeing the light and shadow.
Let me enjoy what is given to us.
When the season advances this year
I will have the inner warmth of a loved companion.

Call it the indoors season, the heating season,
The time when we survive because we have our human habitat.
There’s nothing melancholy about that.
We can bundle up and make forays out and about.

It begins today. I put on an extra layer and go out into the day
Taking full advantage of what daylight hours the retreating sun gives.
Soon the days of red cheeks and cold hands will be upon us.
The welcome hiss of steam heat will comfort us.

being with a tree lover

Before I met her, I had never been with a tree lover.
I had some general sense of tree families,
Especially the crowd pleasing maples,
But I didn’t know all the types like she does.

I’ve been learning to see what has been there all along.
What was an undifferentiated mass of foliage
Now has individual specimens standing out.
What a precious gift she has given me.

Today I was out for my late afternoon bike ride
Traveling the familiar route
Looking up, seeking out the biggest trees,
Admiring their magnificent achievement.

Trees are persistent, growing slowly,
But growing and growing year after year.
Those giant trees were there before I was born
And they should outlive me, too.

There are trees around here that were here when
The Europeans arrived some 300 years ago.
Think of the changes those trees have survived.
Now they are threatened like never before.

Do you know about what’s killing the trees?
I think first you have to see them before you will care.
Leaves are compound and simple, alternate and opposite.
That’s enough to get you started looking at them.

My tree lover is a woman of science, an atheist
She says. So what is it about a tree standing there
That seems to make a relationship with her?
I’ve seen them have an intimate conversation.

lunch walk across the street