Gary Brown: Singing a song about autumn leaves
Thanksgiving is over, so it's time to take down our autumn decorations and replace them with Christmas ones.
And, when we do, there is no more obvious sign of the season than our discovery that our world is covered with a colorful carpet of leaves.
I love autumn leaves.
And by that I mean the lilting song, "Autumn Leaves," as sung by Nat King Cole back in the middle of the 1950s.
I love the song and the singer, but I think real falling leaves stink.
Wait, I shouldn't say that either. Leaves actually have a nice smell, as much as dying things have a good smell. They certainly smell much better than old road kill or fresh compost.
"I can smell autumn dancing in the breeze," author Ann Drake once said.
I like that. It serves up a sensual image in my mind. I can see leaves fluttering. I can feel the crispness of autumn. And I can smell the leaves they drift past my nose.
It's just that the image another quote offers changes my thinking from love to dislike.
"The leaves are all falling, and they're falling like they're in love with the ground," poet Andrea Gibson said, rather poetically.
She includes not a word in this poetic observation – not one stanza, not even a line with a rhyme – about her feelings regarding the need to rake these beautiful leaves and bag them for disposal.
Autumn not like the old days
Back in my younger days, I used to enjoy raking leaves.
When I was little I used to help my father rake leaves. OK, the help part was minimal and the play part was maximum. A lot of what I did was walk through the leaves and kick them. A little of the fun was hiding my younger brother in the leaves. Some of my enjoyment came from getting our dog to run through the leaves so we could laugh at him.
But, I was right out there with a rake in my hands, smelling the leaves and smiling.
I still was grinning when I bought a house, and I raked leaves with gusto and a goal because they were my leaves, so they were special leaves. Since I had a personal interest, I was going to get them piled and bagged up and taken where leaves are supposed to be discarded with great care.
Granted, a lot of my joy had to do with the fact that I would listen to high school, college or professional football games on my portable radio as I raked and I would be particularly happy when my team was leading.
But, in between scores I would hear the leaves rustle beneath my rake and watch them skip across the lawn in the breeze. It would make me happy.
These days I'm pretty much only happy if the leaves are skipping toward my neighbor's yard.
In the autumn of my life, it's every leaf raker for himself.
Leaves as an inspiration
"Autumn leaves shower like gold, like rainbows, as the winds of change begin to blow," author and lecturer Dan Millman once wrote. But he's an optimist and inspirational speaker, so he probably would believe the leaves are blowing to a better place.
Neither my neighbor nor I would subscribe to that sappy idea. We know better. We'd figure they were blowing behind and between our shrubs, which is a whole other more involved leaf raking issue.
And, at this point, there is only so much time before winter to work to get leaves out of their hiding places. Autumn is ending. Winter is on its way.
Poet Stanley Horowitz was familiar with the seasons. He thought of each season as art.
"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."
Nice sentiments Stan. And the soggy ones still wet from rain and snow at the base of your house are sort of like a beautifully artistic mural, until water starts seeping into the basement. And don't forget the ones stuck in the eavestrough. They drip sort of like a majestic waterfall, don't they?
Did I tell you I hate autumn leaves? Not the song. I'm whining about the real thing.
Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com.On Twitter: @gbrownREP
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Gary Brown: Singing a song about autumn leaves
