A multitude of leaves

It’s autumn. The leaves are so many things at once - a swirling of copper confetti, cast down by the waning trees, a shattering of golden ice in the sky, raining down on soft moss and sleeping stone.

They are the dancing girls before Winter’s dramatic entrance, and the bright celebration of Summer’s past. They are at once soft and sharp, brittle and pliable. The contrast they show is the contrast they are. Gold and green. Joy and mourning.

Here are the birch leaves, little gold coins blown across the lawn like the cases of chocolate money. The sycamore leaves caught by the ditch and the hedgebank, brown hands gathering themselves in with pointy fingers. High on the fellside, the larches are joining in, holding their brassy mist so far. Soon, though, they’ll shed like a ginger cat shaking in the sun, and their fur will fast deteriorate into a muddy mulch.

A Japanese maple in a front garden, a beacon of scarlet.

Beech holding its copper close to its silver, a stately piece of artisan jewelry.

A tall fir, defiantly green.

All these sights heralding a beginning and an end. Life and death.

And beautiful in both.