CARTAS OUTONAIS – 3 November 17, 2007 Leaves, mostly yellow now, but bright yellow leaves. The maple tree leaves in my back yard are all yellow. They irradiate a fairy luminosity that lends a strange radiance to the environment.
I woke up late and when I looked out the window to see if it was raining, the sun was shining, and my car was covered with yellow leaves, maple tree leaves. The chlorophyll is all gone now and the trees for a brief moment show their proper color. Maple trees — at least the maple trees of this kind — are yellow it was the chlorophyll that made them green.
All these leaves, millions of them, have to be raked in now and disposed of. I use them for mulch in my garden. They protect the soil against the extreme cold during the winter and in the spring they minimize the growth of weeds.
I enjoy to rake in the fallen leaves and to cover my garden with them making a thick and warm winter mantle.
Robert Frost the great New England poet wrote this beautiful little poem about fallen leaves and the illusive work of gathering them:
GATHERING LEAVES
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what I have then?
Next to nothing for weight;
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop
