Trees......

The trees are glowing, as if some sort of inner light is casting about from them. Even when the sun is not out, there is a certain tree, a maple I think, with deep red leaves that seems illuminated from within.  The streets I walk are some sort of child’s kaleidoscope of varying shades of gold, orange, yellow, red and even fading greens.  Each tree has its role in this orchestra of color, clashing, highlighting and complimenting one another.

The oak trees do not have beautiful and electric colors. Their green leaves turn from green to brown, quickly, matter-of-factly.  Maybe because they are so impressive as is, so massive in breadth and length, their branches reaching out like some Hindu goddess with multiple arms, they don’t need to tell the world of their beauty through such short-lived garish colors. These oaks are not climbing trees, the first branches far too high above heads. No, these are practical sentinels standing over neighborhoods-providing a variety of species a place to nest in spring and abundant food in the fall. Preparing for winter the birds and squirrels are in a feeding frenzy at the moment. The other day I stood under a young oak and watched as a family of Bluejays tap-tapped acorns opening them for the rich nutritious meat within, while a squirrel looked down on us scolding me for allowing the dog so near.

I love trees, always have. There is something comforting about the ability of wooded areas to protect and encircle anyone within its shaded confines. Take a walk in a city park dotted with soccer fields but bordered by woods.  In the heat of the summer, walk by these woods, not even in them, and you will feel a temperature drop, a refreshing coolness that is exempt from the flat exposed playing fields.

On a sweltering summer day, there is nothing quite like walking out of the glare of sunlight into the enfolding arms of a shade tree, its leaves softly shifting as a breeze blows and cools our hot sweaty selves.

As a kid our maple tree in our front yard, situated by the curb was the neighborhood climbing tree, it also served as home-base for Hide-n-Go Seek. Under its green canopy we played Kickball and Kick the Can. It’s branches leaned far out over the street and as we got older we thought it was cool to position ourselves on them, hidden, then spit on unsuspecting cars that dared to drive under us. In October our maple glowed orange and red, in Spring it yielded bundles of green seed-like pods that we split open and stuck on our noses. We called them “helicopters” because of the twirly way they drifted to the ground once released from the tree – as if we could hear the soft thwak, thwak, thawk sound of rotating blades.

Yesterday the evening light was like magic, the skies blue with gray/white puffy clouds casting light and shadows over the trees. They trees lit up, the phrase "in the gloaming" comes to mind. Gloaming is an Old English word meaning - "poetic twilight or dusk"