Figure 1 – Sumac, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I have been facing the dawn each morning, driving through an amazing canopy of color and contemplating the subtle glow of the sunrise.  It truly gives one pause.  My lunchtime walks have been equally contemplative and chromatic.  The sequence of autumn is regal, and every few days some other tree takes center stage in the parade.  There is a certain equality about it.  In this regard nature is truly egalitarian.  The meanest of plants can suddenly come into their own and demand your eye.

The first example is the poison ivy.  It has been hiding, well not really as I am ever cautious of it, all summer.  But they other day it was the turn of the sumac bushes.  They had such an intense color that was so tropical in nature as they made the transition from green to red and yellow that I had to revisit them on a second day to be sure that I wasn’t insanely exaggerating the color of Figure 1.  Soon these too will fade and shed to become first matting underfoot and then next spring, after the winter snows, they will be so much mulch for a new botanical generation.  In the meanwhile I turn to other color.