Had Joyce Kilmer been driving around Montgomery recently, all those years ago (a contradiction in time there I know)...he would still have penned "Trees". What you might not know is that Kilmer was from New Jersey, supposedly (according to a few sources) wrote "Trees" IN Jersey...and that I have my "roots", so to speak, there as well. Here in Alabama I've never heard anyone talking about making the yearly pilgrimage to New England to "see the leaves change"...in Jersey you'd hear it with each approaching fall. The fall here, of course, is skewed a bit datewise later seasonally than in the northeast...but routinely comes roughly about this time of year. And this year it is spectacular!
I was driving around last week and was amazed by how the colours of the leaves are so vibrant. Usually it seems that the leaves change quickly and go from green to "off the tree" with little "hang time" if you will. Also, the change is not so apparent...one tree goes through it, then another and another...not generally in unison enough to get the full-blown impact. This year that just isn't so...in fact if you were going to take a trip to New England to see them (other than the obvious fact it's too late) I would have told you to save your money and take a nice leisurely drive around town. Lawn after lawn, street after street depicts a landscape that is "picture perfect". There's this one ginko tree on Dalraida Drive that was such an awesome sight I would have loved to take a photograph to remember it...and had I been a poet, that image alone would have inspired me to sit down and try to capture it as well...in words.
But the time, like all these leaves, will soon pass...so if you haven't opened your eyes and observed what nature's own canvas can paint...I'd say you really are letting a once in a lifetime exhibition pass you by. And if you thought that poem about trees was just a silly ode to an oak or some other such leafy thing...read it again...and then look around you.
A Bit About Me
- Mariann Simms
- Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".
Tsk, tsk! This could only have been written by someone who's never BEEN to New England during Autumn.
ReplyDeleteListen, Snookums, there's no way that you can convince me that it's anywhere near as good in Alafriggingbama. If you want me to visit, you'll have to come up with a better draw. ;)
And why aren't you taking your camera around with you and capturing some of these images? Huh huh huh? I'm about to get a new cell phone, and while I'm fairly utilitarian about them, this time, I'm getting a camera phone with good picture quality. I thought it was stupid when it first came out, but it does solve the "You never have a camera when you really need one!" problem.
None of that Bluetooth crap, though. Dammit, Jim, I'm an artist, not a Borg!
Oh, yeah-- I just did an entry on my blog about a tree, so go check it out.
ReplyDeletewww.the-eye-wit.blogspot.com
No no no - it really was pretty here last week...okay, so the leaves are falling off the trees a lot now...it really was...but now we have the added feature of leaves all over the streets, which hardly happens here neither for some reason.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the time you drive all the way up here from your neck (actually your state looks like another part of the human body...but I won't comment) of the woods it will be summertime...so what's the point? ;)
Yes, I have a camera phone, too...but it's just not the same standing there holding a stupid phone and taking a photo...kinda like those people who walk around holding their cell phone one foot in front of their faces because they have a speaker on it and apparently want to let everyone know. Yeah, bud...I have one, too...but I don't walk around looking like an idiot or Star Trek wannabe.
Ugh...I have a headache...probably because of holding my cell phone next to my head, within mere centimeters of my brain, instead of out in front of my face, huh?