As I drive in the morning past the industrial park by the highway, past the assisted living center, by the ice cream stand, (the one with rum raisin ice cream in small cones so large you cannot finish them), I see the trees.  Two trees by the road send their flaming yellows and reds skywards. Their maple arms held high,  their jostling  flags flare in the morning sunlight like flaming pentacostal tongues.

They are the bright ones, the counterbalance to the low baritones of the bronze and maroon  oaks of my yard, the yellow and brown platelike elm leaves tattered before they fall, the curling tissues of the grapes where they have overtaken the arbor. My small native garden looks abandoned, leaves gathering at the feet of the seven foot ironweeds, the dried seed cases of evening primrose high above the ground, the soft cotton of milkweed flying and catching on Spirea, falling to the ground to catch wetly on the tumbled remnants of hickory leaves.

Today (I wrote Oct 24, 2012)  I saw a tree so lovely , its yellows, russets,  and salmons so true, my heart stopped.  I cannot think for the orchestra of light the fall colors bring.  I imagine a disease for which the only cure is the collection of fall leaves. My heart will start again as the early fall with its blue skies, turns to the  damp chalky gray of later fall, and I  need this golden  memory to guide me through the dusk.