A Season Of Return

 Painting; "Autumn Memories", by Terri Waters.

     Dry leaves shudder in the wind, drifting softly to the ground on a cool Autumn day. The mountains are suddenly different, their greens exchanged for the rich dark colors of yellow and red. Dogwood trees, once a pale green in spring , are now a brilliant scarlet mass of leaves and berries. Oak and birch, maple and beech, all trade their greenness for heavy, vibrant tones of autumn. 

     Yet it is not only the colors that are different, but the atmosphere, the sense of finality that comes from the changing mountains. Not until the spring will new growth come from the soil, for autumn is a shedding of what once was new and green. It is a season of return, when the earth reclaims what has come from within it. And soon there will be sleep, until the spring, and the hesitant growth returns.