From one gold leaf falling lithely to gilded droves of them careening across the manicured lawns of Montclair, racing like gazelle abroad the Sub-Saharan plains, being chased by the spotted predators of the Serengeti, I felt blessed to be privy to the purview of nature-in-action on this cold blustery day.
It seemed as if I were moving through a moving picture, a cinematic tour of all the amazing shifting and uplifting and turning of the tides that the transition of the subsiding seasons bring.
Packs of grey clouds scurried lowly across white mountains of cumulonimbus others—the lower cumuli running in the opposite direction like hungry wolves huddling against the snow driving them across the tundra.
The deciduous trees seemed to be performing a sibilant prelude to the day for me—with the way they rustled, whistled, shimmered and played along with the howl of the cool wind fluttering through the fray of bending branches, which with battered little sails, barely were withstanding the tumultuous sea of change.
In great splendor the exquisite chaos of Fall was in full bloom, with fancy swirls of autumn color dancing elfishly everywhere—a iridescent ballet of sienna, coral, goldenrod, redwood, yellow-green, chocolate and chestnut brown, auburn and splashes of ruby red leaves pliéd like prima ballerinas on their last legs, gracefully bowing out in staggered unison to fall back into the earthly fold of Mother Nature.
And although, for the moment, the forests that blanket the Garden State are vigorous and full, all too soon they will be barren and readied for renewal again. For much as we shed our skin, our hair, and the rest of our selves daily, our floral counterparts likewise weather time with pertinacious perennial regeneration.
The sun, the rain, the wind, all chip in to help bring this resplendent foliage down upon us. And we are lucky if we remain consciously-in-awe of the process, and acquiesce with gracious resignation to our own revolution by paying homage to the humbling forces of nature and the assiduity they apply toward turning the wheel of life.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~ Robert Frost
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