Enjoy these beautiful short pieces, as the leaves change and promptly rain down around us. Wherever you live, I hope you have had the chance to watch the leaves make their annual costume change to colors of crimson, pumpkin orange, fireglow yellow and gold. This is one of nature’s greatest gifts!

“Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.”
–Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (1806-1861)

“The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans . . . “
–William Butler Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”

“Some trees, as small hickories, appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously, as a soldier grounds arms at a signal; and those of the hickory, being bright yellow still, though withered, reflect a blaze of light from the ground where they lie. Down they have come on all sides, at the first earnest touch of autumn’s wand, making a sound like rain.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Autumnal Tints”

“The dead leaves fall like noiseless rain
The air is calm and sweet;
Upon the woodland and the plain
The ghost of summer rests her feet.”
 — Clinton Scollard, American poet (1860-1932)