Fall Leaves

Fall Leaves
By D. A. White

I couldn’t help but laugh this morning.  Yup, it’s fall.  After hearing the wind whipping and howling around the house I just had to look out the window and what did I see, every leaf in the neighborhood making a mad dash for a late appointment.  It was the funniest thing.  They tumbled and bounced and did the boogie while whipping down the street like they were late for a very important date.
 
They reminded me of a bunch of ants scurrying around.  Busily going to and fro doing being so very industrious at their ant business.  This of course, leaves the majority of us baffled.  What do ants really do anyway?  That’s the feeling watching the leaves gave me.  What are they doing?  Where are they going?  Better yet, since they all didn’t get raked up by industrious humans, where are they eventually going to end up?

Have you really ever considered the fall leaf?  I mean other than being pretty while hanging on the tree in the summer or a pain in the butt to rake up?  Personally I love their smell.  There is something totally unique about fall and the way fall smells and I’m totally convinced it’s because of the leaves.  Pick up a leaf off the ground and smell it.  What do you think of?  I think of campfires and fireplaces with their cozy warmth and flickering, harsh beauty.  I think of the earth, the soft sponginess of it, and the damp, musky smell of things decaying; and refortifying the earth.  I think of crisp sharpness of the air, the bite of cold, the true herald of fall.  I think of the wind, whipping my gate open and shut like it couldn’t make up its mind weather it was coming or going.

Then to walk outside and immediately be beaten to death by my own hair!  That darn wind just pushed me and shoved me around as if I was no more than a kitty toy that my fur kids play with.  It really can make you feel small and insignificant in the face of such power.  If the wind does that to me, think of that little leaf. 

Of course, the leaves have it all over us in sheer quantity if nothing else.