Dawn Phelps
Columnist
Autumn has made her presence known. A beautiful maple tree over on the hill in our town is showing off colors of orange and red, and splotches of bright yellow leaves are showing up in the trees alongside the highways.
After our first hard frost, our red blaze maple trees outside our front window will change from green to dark red. Then the leaves will quickly fall and form a colorful red blanket on the ground under the trees. Only a few isolated leaves will be left clinging to the parent trees.
The trees reminded me of a poem by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918). Joyce, a writer, was a man in the New York National Guard who was sent to France during WWI. He was killed by a sniper, and died at the age of 31, but that’s another story.
One of my grade-school teachers required our class to memorize and recite the poem. It is entitled “Trees,” and I still remember the words.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Fields of soybeans have turned bright yellow, and milo crops have turned brown. Some of the beans have been harvested, creating clouds of dust as the harvesting machines crawl across the fields. Farmers are working hard to get their crops harvested.
The mornings are becoming chilly now with temperatures in the 40s and 50s. I have not seen a hummingbird at our feeders in a few days, so I will soon wash our feeders for the last time this season.
It is time for the monarch butterflies to wing their way south to Mexico, and oddly enough, our neighbor’s lilacs are blooming again, as if it is springtime! Yesterday, mature monarchs and some younger ones were feeding on the lilac blossoms, and I snapped some photos of them!
The ground under our neighbor’s walnut tree across the alley from our house is laden with a dense crop of walnuts. And the squirrels are chasing, scurrying around, and picking up walnuts that they will plant in unusual places.
During the winter, the walnuts will freeze and pop open. Next spring, tiny walnut trees will emerge in places where there is no space for walnut trees to grow. Yes, autumn is here, and it is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away.
Our changing seasons are like the seasons of our lives with spring quickly giving way to summer, summer to autumn, with winter to soon follow. If you are older, you may feel the effects of “autumn” in your joints.
Albert Camus said, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” Oh, how beautiful the trees are becoming!
Since we cannot and would not want to control the seasons, we will just have to be thankful—thankful for every day we are given. “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” Ecclesiastes 3:1. And the trees in the autumn season are glorious!
