Tag Archives: fall leaves

Magnificent Maples: October 2014

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Wherever I went this week, it felt as though I was in a “Maple Street” state of mind. I keep hearing the opening line of a poem I memorized this year, “The Wild Swans at Coole” by W. B. Yeats. The poem begins, “The trees are in their autumn beauty…” No wonder the line reverberates when there is vivid beauty everywhere I turn.

My neighborhood has been filled with glowing leaves this year. Northfield’s actual Maple Street is just a few blocks from my house, and I took most of these photographs on the same day last week. Within a single block, I found yellow, green, red, and orange trees, and every nuanced shade between.

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There was a time when I only knew the names of two trees: maple and pine. Years later, I am familiar with, and admire, dozens of other varieties, but there is something about maples of any color, size, or shape of leaf that calls to my heart. This year I am entranced by their choral presence. En masse, they can  function like stained glass between the dark leading of trunks and branches.

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We think autumn colors are predictable, but are they? It seems to me that each year is distinct. Some years have next to no arboreal fireworks. This year, there must have been an optimal balance of moisture, temperature, and lack of winds and lashing rains. The colors this year took me by surprise, seeming to explode out of nowhere. Whether the sky is grey or milky or burning blue, all of the deciduous trees — and particularly the maples — are brilliant. As this photograph of a mirror in the heart of my home demonstrates, they even radiate their brilliance indoors.

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Although I am especially dazzled this year, autumn has, of course, its distinctly elegiac side. Sometimes these maple leaves seem like hand-shaped silk handkerchiefs waving farewell as the growing season drifts out of sight.

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Until another Wednesday, wishing you well,  Signature Maple Leaves

In Praise of Glorious Autumn Leaves & “Housecat” (Poem for Alpine)

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Autumn Pink Leaves in Japanese Garden 2008

Autumn Oak Leaves 2007

Every year, I am dazzled by the colors of the leaves as they turn and fall. Above are pink and green leaves in the Garden of Quiet Listening, a Japanese garden on the Carleton College campus, just a few blocks from my house.  Every year, I want to hang onto these colors, to bring them inside, to keep them in some way past their expiration date. Here are a few attempts:

Autumn Leaves Preserved 2003

Autumn Leaves Wall Hanging 2003

Autumn Leaves Raked with Julia 2003

Many years ago, when it was brought home to me that all mammals don’t perceive color in the same way that humans tend to, I tried to imagine the world from the point of view of my cat, Alpine. Below is her baby picture, taken the first day I met her.

Alpine as a Baby

Some of you might remember Alpine. She used to spend lots of time on window ledges (and couches, too).

Alpine on the Couch

Alpine Undignified

Alpine Undignified

Alpine has also inspired lines in several poems over the years, including the whole of this poem.

HOUSECAT

Alpine’s down is filling in
Between her summer fur and skin.
Crouched low on a window ledge,
She watches leaves desert the hedge.
She cannot see their orange and red;
Does Alpine mourn the autumn dead?
Not she; she yawns at the setting sun,
As much to say an evening’s done
As to convey an unconcern —
For whether seasons stay or turn.

Leslie Schultz (1982)

Alpine with Patience and Fortitude (New York Library Lions)

Alpine with Patience and Fortitude (New York Library Lions)

Here is Alpine the literary cat, overlooking Gulliver’s Travels, Vanity Fair, and (maybe?) Jane Eyre, colorful volumes held upright by scaled down copies of the famous New York Library Lions, Patience and Fortitude. Regarding color vision, it seems that the jury is still out on which colors cats can see. (If you are curious, here is an interesting link to an NBC News story.) All I know for certain is that I wouldn’t exchange my human color perception for anything, not even feline grace.

Autumn Leaves on Brick

Autumn Leaf with Polka Dots 2007

Have you seen any polka-dotted leaves this year?

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Autumn Leaves on Second Street 2007

Waxings and Wanings & An Elegy for Autumn: “Compass II” (Poem)

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Mississippi River, Looking North From 46th Street Bridge, Minneapolis

Mississippi River, Looking North From 46th Street Bridge, Minneapolis

As the days shorten and darken, it’s natural to turn contemplative, to wonder if what have we done is of lasting value. Other mammals, like squirrels, feel the need to hurry their accomplishments toward a finish line. And yet, it is a new start, too. This is the time of the traditional Celtic celebration of the new year. I think that is the mood I feel with a new school season starting: a tallying up, a reckoning, a sense of “Okay…now what?” as I look ahead.

October Cottage

This week, as the leaves approach their most firey, I was able to take some photos of the Mississippi shoreline, view the scamperings and hear the scoldings of the squirrels, sigh with relief over a finally-repaired roof, and sigh with satisfaction over a well-stocked freezer full of organic farm produce. Now I am eyeing that stack of books–biographies of Jane Austen and Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Brunetti’s Cookbook (for vegetables with a Venetian twist), and a mystery I have been meaning to read for ten years, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which I found at a Little Free Library location recently.

Squirrel

As I type this, the rain that has been threatening all day has begun to dampen the pavement but I am basking in the glow of images of the past: albino squirrels in Northfield and Minneapolis, the blue bottle tree on Orchard Street, the contrast between the Cannon and the great Mississippi into which it flows. Time for the season’s first cup of hot cocoa and good book!

Albino Squirrel in Northfield

Albino Squirrel Minneapolis 10 9 2013

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COMPASS II

More than a flock of geese veeing their way south,
one industrious squirrel, its piston-mouth
dropping walnut shells like sharp metal filings,
and acidic turns in walnut leaves’ stylings
(their change from deepest green to lemony yellow-gold)
leaves me bone-deep certain that the year is old;
makes me wonder if the harvest is enough
and then ponder if the winter will be rough,
if the Christmas season will hold any cheer
or if implacable blue shadows draw near.

Autumn is rich in harvest and imagery,
its coppers and golds rusting towards elegy.
My lone hope is to refine this sinking mood,
to render polished words from bleak attitude,
and strike, on the anvil used by all the bards,
something more lasting than those keen, tanic shards.

Leslie Schultz

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Thank you for reading this! If you think of someone else who might enjoy it, please forward it to them. And, if you are not already a subscriber, I invite you to subscribe to the Wednesday posts I am sending out each week–it’s easy, free, and I won’t share your address!

Cannon River, Looking South From Second Street Bridge, Northfield

Cannon River, Looking South From Second Street Bridge, Northfield