There are dozens of chipmunks and squirrels in these woods today. They willingly share with us the specialness that is here to see, to hear, to feel; the wildlife, the colors and the wind.
Acorns high in the tall oak trees fall noisily through the leaves and branches only to be gathered up quickly by our friends as they rush across fallen trees, and through dry leaves, to disappear into their homes in the ground to build up their winter food supply.
The deer have changed their rich-red summer coats for the deep-piled gray-brown of winter. Fawn have lost nearly all of their spots to growth and seasonal change.
The days as shorter, the nights longer. Fairies, elves
and leprechauns have attached a special nozzle to the end of the rainbow to spray paint
blade and leaf into the flaming foliage of deciduous mountain country tree and bush and
grass.
A roman candle burst of colors leaps off the trees arranging themselves into bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
It is the freshness of the moment and the changing patterns that makes the annual event forever new.
At mid-day tree canopy gumdrop colors are caught by the lake's glittering surface to be reflected upward coloring the sky and its clouds with a mirror image of equally fantastic color. The entire world of Appalachian Mountain Country; land, lake, air and sky is one grand and glorious profusion of pigment beyond imagination.
It is a living rainbow and now we know what Autumn leaf colors are for - they are for making rainbows and the necessary pigments to supply the world with many mini-rainbows over the next 12 months.
Copyright © 1988, 1999 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published October 5, 1988 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.