Autumn is leaving its leaves.

I leafed through the book on leaves.

Autumn leaves.

Autumn is almost gone but with the warm weather it has been dawdling and only now the leaves are leaving. In a week’s time it will be winter and yet many trees are still in leaf. I took the above photo to preserve how beautiful leaves can be. Back some decades ago, I went through a period of drying leaves in books but still remember how a fascinating discovery it would be coming across those after a year or so, when opening the book.

I sometimes wonder what will be still showing when autumn befalls us and what be left of any of us? A photo album, my postage stamp collection, a few boxes of photos, copies of rate notices? A faded marriage certificate? (With many, perhaps divorce certificates). I recently found a yellowed certificate of quantity-surveying together with one of printmaking including lithography. What will be made of us when a great-great-great-great grand child in two hundred years time will decide to dig into their heritage and open up the drawers to find those long lost dusty remnants of our lives?

The beauty of a nice fall preceding a good refreshing winter is that it gives a chance on reflection. How did it all go? Sure, a good melancholy has always been welcome, give a philosophical escape, especially in late autumn. Many escape reflecting on the past, and find escape in petrol driven leaf-blowers or go gambling at a club, watch footy on TV or worse,  give vent to a hopeless despair by denigrating Muslims or the Chinese.

For many the watching of falling leaves has a lot going for it. It gives a respite. I love it!

The Falling Leaves

By Margaret Postgate Cole

November 1915

Today, as I rode by,

I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree

In a still afternoon,

When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,

But thickly, silently,

They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;

And wandered slowly thence

For thinking of a gallant multitude

Which now all withering lay,

Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,

But in their beauty strewed

Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.