Leafers and Peepers

For those of you in the northeast, did you notice how the fall colors are in full bloom

I thought for sure two weeks ago that we were not going to see the brilliance we usually see in the waning days of October, but all of a sudden the yellows, reds, oranges and browns popped and we have a peepers and leafers paradise.

“Peepers and leafers"  are what we call the city folks who drive a few hundred miles north to see the colors in the Catskills. They do it on a weekend and clog the rural roads with slow traffic and photographers poking their cameras out the car windows.

I don’t blame them. There is something wonderfully atavistic and comforting about seeing first hand the changing seasons. The colorful sights resonate and rejuvenate a knowing inside us that holds our attention to change and says it’s OK; it’s normal. It's us.

Poetically I would put it this way:

O' fleeting, splendid bright, October's dazzling light

     Long hidden in the buds of birth below the green.

     An ecstasy of eyes ability to see,

     What nevermore and ever will again be seen.

    

     Tiara wreaths of crimson reds and sienna.

     Robes of rusted browns, ensigns tanned in saffron hue,

     Waving standards of the Oak, the Birch and Maple,

     The Ash and Aspen, just before their leafs adieu.

     Blowing in a pruning breeze, colors drop away

     Not to die, but to decorate the frosted fall

     And celebrate the shedding cloak of summer's sheen

     Before the dancing flakes of snow will white enthrall.

     Colors are the chorus, the season’s change in sound.

     Scarlet, a crispy snap, Jasmines much more frail,

     Maroons rustle in the breath of a bounding wind

     And lingering greens help the harmonies prevail.

     The leaves of fall, the garland crowns of wooded land

     Attune to the life of man by the breaths we share.

     The exhale of one, the inhale of the other,

     A symbiotic natural grace within the air.

     Keep they palate bright, October, drop no more leaves,

     Least not until appreciation passes by

     And then, the comfort of your flower quilt will warm

     A winter day with thanks the way you beautify.