Feast Of The Leaves, Part 1

Yesterday was the Feast of the Leaves, an annual event held at my son’s yard. The ceremony consists of the gathering of this year’s gifts of the many maples, truly Nature’s Fallen Angels. I noticed hundreds of snow geese out on the lake. It was a grey morning, and the sun was doing its best to pop out occasionally as the autumn winds whisked the clouds to another county.

For some undetermined reason one of the geese decides that it is time to go, and up they go with a ruckus and noise beyond belief. They circle the lake and off they go to fields afar. It was a time to lean on my rake and nod to the beauty of this ascendance of the gaggle and their disappearance.

As I toiled with leaves, I could stop at any moment and the view around, be it the lake, the maples or even the stand of balsams out back across the road, would be ever changing. Grey clouds scudding by, and suddenly, a ray of sun lighting up the yellows of the trees across the lake, just for a minute you know, not much longer. A red roof lit up, another colourful building that I had not previously seen, a sort of coming out in the spotlight of the sun’s rays.

I went in and built a pot of coffee. Got my mug and went out to sit by the lakeside and partake of one of those moments where life stops and we wish that it would remain as such for the rest of the day. The lake was a mirror, the geese grouped in the middle and the lily pads at the end of the dock began boogieing in the garbled water. (by Jim Carten, Quebec, Canada.)