"Yellow Leaves, or None, or Few..."

If I understand leaf coloration at all, I think the recent snowfall killed off our best October colors before they got a chance to appear. Apparently the leaves can take the cold, but they get tinged with brown when snow settles on them. The southern edges of the Allegheny are still decked out in vivid array, but around here, the colors have been muted and toned down.

In any case, I'd like to apologize on behalf of Mother Nature (or Pan or whoever) to all the poor, disappointed leaf peepers I see driving Route 6 with their Ohio plates, looking in vain for the mid-October splendor of The Big Level.

Ah, but it's still fall, and I'm still a melancholy ex-English teacher, so here's another poem just for the occasion. This one's a sonnet by William Shakespeare in honor of all those 400 year old trees in Cook's Forest that began their life in 1609, the same year these verses were published.

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long."

The song of the ephemeral autumn. Love it well.