rejectomorph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rejectomorph) wrote2004-11-13 05:09 pm
rejectomorph) wrote2004-11-13 05:09 pm
Dropped!
It took but three days for the dogwood to go from bright red foliage to bare gray twigs. It's almost like one of those Warner Brothers cartoon trees that drops every leaf at one instant. It's a stripper tree! Maybe I ought to go stick a dollar bill in its crotch. Ah, what the hell! It put on a good show- make it a five!
Most of the trees with bright color have now shed themselves of their autumn garb. The oaks are, of course, still clinging to their golden brown lace, and the mulberry still screens my window with its two-tone display of green and yellow. In fact, I have a suspicion that the mulberry transports extra leaves hither from another dimension, else how can I account for the thick robe lain daily at its feet, while its branches are yet as lush with leaves as ever? The mulberry is no suburban strip-mall stripper. Its dance of the seven veils will last well into December.
Today, the forest was drenched with chilly sunlight, and I could see the shining tops of clouds that covered the valley. The recent storm is gone, and has left the winter pattern in its wake. Now come the months when the bright mountains rise like an island from those fogs which keep the lowlands shadowy and gray. Some days I will gloat, and other days I will be envious, and wish that I could descend into that foggy world. I seldom have the time to go there, so I will wait for those rare nights when the clouds creep upward with dusk and enshroud the forest. But that won't be tonight, I think. An ordinary night ahead, I'd say, filled with the sound of fat mulberry leaves dropping to the lawn- from another dimension.
Most of the trees with bright color have now shed themselves of their autumn garb. The oaks are, of course, still clinging to their golden brown lace, and the mulberry still screens my window with its two-tone display of green and yellow. In fact, I have a suspicion that the mulberry transports extra leaves hither from another dimension, else how can I account for the thick robe lain daily at its feet, while its branches are yet as lush with leaves as ever? The mulberry is no suburban strip-mall stripper. Its dance of the seven veils will last well into December.
Today, the forest was drenched with chilly sunlight, and I could see the shining tops of clouds that covered the valley. The recent storm is gone, and has left the winter pattern in its wake. Now come the months when the bright mountains rise like an island from those fogs which keep the lowlands shadowy and gray. Some days I will gloat, and other days I will be envious, and wish that I could descend into that foggy world. I seldom have the time to go there, so I will wait for those rare nights when the clouds creep upward with dusk and enshroud the forest. But that won't be tonight, I think. An ordinary night ahead, I'd say, filled with the sound of fat mulberry leaves dropping to the lawn- from another dimension.
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ALL the trees in Pensacola dropped ALL their leaves in one night in September. Do ya think it might have been the 130 mph winds? The weird part is that six weeks later the deciduous trees all put out their spring foliage. Guess they thought autumn and winter had come and gone and it must be spring. I don't have a clue what may happen over the winter, because we do get freezing temps now and then, and some years even a little snow, so come real spring, what's going to happen? Mind you, I don't lay awake at night wondering, but I am curious to see what'll happen. I wonder if I can special order leaves from that other dimension.
I love your description of the ridge and the clouds in Butte Canyon and/or the valley. I miss these sights...of Lassen floating in the mist off to the right as you come down off the Skyway into Chico, and the smells of autumn and those wonderful chilly mornings. I just had a little shiver of pleasant memory...the summer I lived in a tent up on Coutelenc Road, and how I moved into my friend's camper trailer in the large garage they'd built that summer. The next summer they built their retirement home. Just me and my parakeet and Siamese cat up in the boonies. People at the newspaper office where I worked would freak when they asked where in town I lived and I said, "Oh, in a tent up off Coutelenc on Ray Family Road." Hey, it was free rent! Saved me a bundle when I really needed to buy a new car.
Oh, and another memory of stopping in Magalia to watch the clouds/fog pour into Whiskey Flats on an autumn morning. Sitting on several thousand cubic tons of serpentine, watching what looked line an enormous lake, as if God had dammed up Heaven and made a twin of Lake Oroville out of clouds. It's the kind of sight and scents that even these 99% pure white quartz beaches with great blue herons that flop down right next to you, and pods of dolphins that dance on the breakers, squealing for applause, just can't quite equal.
Thanks for setting these memories into motion, my friend. You do have a wonderful way of painting with words.
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