autumn leaves
Sometimes leaves, when they fall, come fast, a wind whips through the tree and separates the tenuous link between stem and branch and all the leaves like sheets of paper come whispering down. They coat the grass in a swath of brilliant gold, a plush carpet of tender yellow foliage, sunlight fallen to earth.
Sometimes leaves fall in flurries: the wind riffles through the branches like fingers through long hair, sending the loosest ones flying. Sometimes, over hours or days or even weeks, the leaves carpet everything, growing more brown and brittle by day, until someone sweeps them up into mounds in the center of a lawn or at the edge of a property. Soft, cushioned mounds, makeshift beds of slowly decaying leaf matter. Pillows by the side of the road.
Sometimes a single leaf falls from the top of a nearly bare tree, catches on the light wind, and swings and sways and swirls its slow, lazy way to the ground.
Sometimes when it rains, stray leaves stick up from the asphalt like cowlicks after a shower.
Sometimes the profusion of leaves, leaves everywhere, seems an extravagance of riches, bright and dull, crisp and supple, a scattered rain of leaves drenching everything in sight.
Sometimes, when summer shades to autumn leeches into winter, the fallen leaves smell like earth.
Sometimes the leaves, they surprise me.