The Trees Have Their Say

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower – Albert Camus

She resisted us so long. Tried so hard not to write this. Not wanting to descend into cliche. The enemy of the fiction writer. All autumn long, she resisted. (All fall long, in deference to our maple and sequoia friends Stateside).

But she just can’t bloody help it. She’s been in the forest with us, you see, and we were showing off so damn much, we made it too hard for her to ignore us.

Look at our leaves as they glitter! Vibrant reds, rich golds, every shade of ochre, as we rain down on her head with heartbreaking elegance.

The finches move among us, darting and preparing. One lone dragonfly glides confidently by, we haven’t yet told him that summer is over. And the hornet hovers, so gravity defying, still but moving, a mini miracle, a horizontal masterpiece, glittering also.

Fairy toadstools gather, in clumps and villages at our feet, some turned orange and pointing upwards, like little umbrellas on a windy day.

We are awe.

We are silence.

A golden silence that surrounds and takes over.

The clouds, the light, the birds. The humble fly rendered incandescent, by this mystical light which captures us all.

The spiders cast their silver nets, hundreds and thousands of them, across the dormant gorse, as it congregates below us. The fox finds shelter, in this season. We wish him well, will be here for him.

Just as we will always be there for you.

As we whisper in our oneness.

The secrets of the ages.