“The one red leaf, the last of its clan,

That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.”

—  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Something shifted in the Autumn woods yesterday.  The previous night’s rain had stopped, but the winds that had accompanied it continued to howl through the trees.  Although the air was warm again, two fronts battled in the sky until the cold air finally won.  Between the damp and the chill, I could feel the next stage of Autumn abruptly begin.  The earth, that only last week was dotted here and there with fallen leaves, now lay covered with their magnificent carpet.  Here and there, some poplar leaves collected rainwater that weighed them down as if to say, “You belong to the earth now; no more dancing for you.”  Even those that continued to fall were held by the still-wet ground and kept from skittering across the land.

The sudden stillness at ground level wrapped my ears in cotton, and I found myself holding my breath in an effort not to break the silence.  A tiny chipmunk scurried through the brush, as if to remind me that I was only a visitor to this silent land.  I turned my eyes upward and watched the treetops shiver in the cold breeze.  Their leaves danced furiously, as if they knew that this dance might be their last.  I watched them, silhouetted against the fast-moving clouds that now and then allowed the sun to peek through, sending out rays of heavenly light.  I watched as here and there the music would stop for one leaf or another.  The branches would toss them high into the sky, the sun would wash them in light and show the brilliance of their color, and at last they would drift to the silent world below.

I sat in reverence there in the woods.  I thought of those I have loved whose final, colorful dance has ended.  I thought of the way they ended, bathed in the light and forever etched in my memory.  The dancing and then the silence like the color and the stillness, the clouds and the light, transport me in Autumn to memories of living and dancing and finally returning home to a peaceful and silent place.  Blow, Autumn wind.  Dance, Autumn leaves.  Amen.