Stratus Gray

The laceleaf maple's crimson organs fall and scatter on the ground like shattered glass, as naked shadowed fingers shade the pall and Autumn days prepare to shout their last. Now in the forest cling the stubborn few whose tendrils rage against the Winter wind - die proudly at the helm of fate they knew the promised gift that nature would rescind. Yet like the Winter rye on fallow fields the leaves will sleep to feed the roots of Spring, to celebrate the births that warmth will yield and cycle of the promised gift to bring. For now the Autumn winks its stratus grays reminding us of past November days.