Autumn

While walking earlier today, I noticed a few tall trees in the distance were starting to turn yellow. One tree in particular stands out to me; one changing faster than others, adding a new hue to the once all-green canopy of trees. I look around and start to notice the first signs of yellowing on other trees, too – the ends of branches tinted with the colour of the next season; leaf-shaped reminders that, with time, summer becomes autumn; green becomes yellow and red and brown as we cycle through the seasons. My imagination anticipates autumn while most trees are green. We live in days of colour, living musically in the breeze like the dancing leaves.

I went to my website to check when the trees changed colour last year. I noticed in the last year that writing about the seasons means I have a record of change. “Autumn” takes me back to last year. On 20 August, I observed the yellowing of the trees. Today, too, I feel the changes in temperature, and hope that we are experiencing the tail end of this summer’s heat. Although it is still warm, and the following weeks are forecasted to reach peaks in the high-teens.

This has me thinking about blog posts as bookmarks – of seasons, of change, of observations; as records: barometer readings, written through the lens of poetry and prose, just as Turner’s landscapes depicted the hues of the sky through the lens of paint.

Noticing the changing colours of the trees today, I had a small feeling of fear: is it too early for the trees to be changing? Another part of me remembers that we are only three weeks away from September, and reflects on how this time last year, too, I saw the changes in the seasons. I feel concern for Nature as I do for everything I love.

The wind rushes through the gaps between the leaves, trees swishing side-to-side as if they were a paint brush adding colour to the sky. Imagine if trees did paint the colour of the sky – if every swish was practice for the ever-changing hues of day. In that world, perhaps the growth and change in the leaves would be like an artist finding and re-finding their voice, one that fits the season of life they are in.

“Autumn” takes me back to last year