Seeing Red Yet?

Red is the color of the autumn leaves

taking their winter holidays from their trees;

when the frost brings them leave to go,

they're in haste to be off before the snow.

The first frost has come and gone. It was brief.

It has hardly colored a maple leaf.

Sumac and sycamore leaves go by light,

leaving when equinox comes into sight.

After a long rainy summer the flowers

of September had hardly enough time to bloom

before Hurricane Ian's edge of cool showers

laid rugs of red leaves on the flowers' room.

Though a touristy town is a tedious thing 

it's always fun to see what the autumn leaves bring:

the more colors in the leaves' bright profusion

the better the seasonal cash infusion

so keep oaks and beeches, whose leaves are strongest;

if not the brightest, show color the longest,

but all maple trees can be tapped for syrup

as well as the reds and the yellows they stir up.

So the tourists had sycamore leaves to view,

and sumac leaves bright as the red maples' hue,

and sunflower, goldenrod, boneset, and asters

distracting their minds from the far-South disasters,

Horrid thoughts? Greedy? It would have been horrider

if they'd found nowhere to be tourists but Florida.

When the rain washed down all the red and brown,

next to leave were the tall tulip poplars' crown,

bright gold leaves shaped like the saddlebacks

between the ridges that steer our tracks.

This rain is washing them down and away,

another light rain that will last all day.

But the oak, beech, and maple leaves are still green;

even dogwood's purple has yet to be seen.

Last week Michigan had all the color

(even Adirondack views seemed duller).

The Blue Ridge still has a look of September.

Has that ever lasted so long before?

Not often; and, as the oldtimers remember,

a wet July made the leaves take more

time to do their work of digesting light

before sun-drying to perfectly bright

color to take their leave and their parting flight.

And the tourists come, and the tourists go.

There's still time to see the leaves' final show. 

From another year, a view of poplar and sumac trees below the Mendota fire tower where birders gather to try to count the migrating hawks. 

Music: "Maple on the Hill"

Provocation: https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2022/10/friday-writings-48-red.html