Midwinter Color

An entirely white sky — the black lines and curves of bare branches stood out starkly, like ink on paper. This is the speech of trees.

It lacks repetition and perhaps even pattern, but not logic; it tells the story of what the tree experienced and how it responded. Like writing, it lingers; it does not fade into mist like ephemeral speech, to persist only in memory where it can, like the mist, twist and turn, change shape as it fades. Like written ink on paper, the speech of trees remains only until damaged. In spring, flowers and leaves will slowly fill the space and obscure this speech (though they tell the tree’s story, too — a different story, brief yet repeated, predictable, like the chorus of a song.) Autumn’s loss of leaves lets the tree's speech reemerge each winter.

Trees in the mist. The mist made them appear two-dimensional, like lines on paper.

The elm tree in the misty morning, with some silvery beads of rain and a single beige elm leaf suspended from the thin twigs.

The mist and morning's darkness dulled the red of a cardinal in a Bradford pear tree.

What remains of summer’s scarlet hibiscus — sticks and seedpods — hung with a few silvery spiderwebs lined with droplets of water.

What color the approaching winter had robbed of the remaining leaves, the misty morning restored. Through layers of gossamer cloud, the sweetgum branches became black limbs cradling armfuls of bright yellow stars — the same leaves I’d described the day before as “dull.” Airy white veils of fog further vivified the defiant red of the blueberry leaves. They transformed the beige of faded pokeweed into pale gold, the dormant stalk now a stately sapling, ornamented with delicate, dry leaves — spiralling sheets of pleated gold. A patch of canna lilies, all faded and folded to half their summer height, stood huddled together, draped in long leaves — like a group of wanderers wrapped in cloaks and shawls. The tallest canna, the group’s leader, had one leaf stuck straight out, parallel to the ground — an arm extended, pointing the way forward.

Bright red blueberry leaves in the mist.

Red blueberry leaves and a mist-silvered spiderweb suspended from the branch.

More bluberry leaves, these a mix of red and yellow.

The white underside of a single bluberry leaf, beaded with droplets of mist.

The day after Solstice, the day we left Atlanta for our winter trip to the west, the blueberry bushes were nearly bare. So fast the leaves had turned from green, to red, to gone.

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Today is six months since I began writing Falling in a Bog! I made an ambitious goal to reach 100 subscribers in six months, and I am happy to announce that this goal was met! Welcome, new readers! Here is where it all began (if you are interested in going back.)

We are still traveling, so this week’s is a bit short on words and heavier on photos. I’ve been posting photo updates from our travels to Notes, and will resume the normal weekly short essays when I return to Atlanta this coming week.