Take a moment after you read this to stand at a window or even venture to the world outside. Don't take in the human made surroundings and in order to remain polite speak to someone (if but a brief "Hello") and lookup... Can you see the trees?...
Good...
Now actually look at them. Look at them as if it was the first time you have ever seen them. Look at them like a young child would. Do they change for you? If not that's alright, maybe practice is just needed; like learning how to swim or sing.
But for me the change is like black and white. Their colors become more vibrant and the seem to pose under the careful consideration. The wind hums through the maze of branches while the leaves dance before the sun. Their shadows play games on the ground, flickering back and forth.
It becomes another world and I am nothing but a stranger than. I stand beneath a majestic creation. One that reaches towards the heavens but at the same times seems to notice me on the ground below. It puts on a play for me. The entire form seems intent on doing it's best to preform for me in those few seconds that I am in their world. And then the finale comes.
A breeze much stronger than before flows through the branches again, but this time slowly pulling the leaves from their home. They free-fall down in great swooping spirals and then come to a rest on the cooling floor. Here is the final rest for the dancers, and they all will come to the same fate. Laying still on the ground till a white blanket comes to cover them and then they return to the very earth to nourish the tree they were born from.
It is beautiful... a sight to behold, truly. One that no matter how many pictures you take could never bring the same amount of awe as the real thing...
But... not this night...
No, tonight the sky is dark and a cold wind mercilessly tears the colorful leaves from their branches. They twirl down in a vibrant shower that holds a sad beauty. Their life dance, cut short in such a tragic end.
But it doesn't end there...
Clouds, much darker, drag their forms along the mountain ridge. In an angry retaliation to the beauty they blur and hide the patch-work art this season has given us. Then beneath their cold corpses, where our watchful eyes cannot see, they begin to lay waste to a beautiful land...
So many trees will be stripped bare of their colors, and soon... they will slip into a deep sleep; blanketed in the same white. They will remain asleep to await the warm caress of Spring and awaken and once more begin their life dance.
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