Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Autumn’s Splendor
“Fresh, vibrant June passes to a languid, slow July. Then comes a turning point, when summer suddenly feels utterly tiresome” (Springer 110). Autumn has come, and nature is gradually changing. The once warm and pleasant attitude of the forest slowly turns dull as the get ready for the harsh winter ahead of it. The tall, towering oak trees tower surround the forest like a castle wall; protecting everything within from the harsh elements to come. The brisk, ruthless wind blows at every inch of them trying to get them to budge, but they stand strong like a wall of soldiers ready to go to battle. Their enormous trunks are cemented into the ground like the support beams for the Sears Tower. The ground around them is scattered with layers of red and orange painted leaves, which continually sway to the ground one by one like skydivers jumping out of a plane. They provide a blanket for twisted roots below. Bark encompasses the entire base of the tree, sheltering the insides of the tree. Amber tree sap oozes out of every nook and cranny of the bark, and looks as though the bark were bleeding from many years of painful service. It has the marks of an aged warrior. Pieces of battered bark peel from the tree as they leave hundreds of years of memories behind. The branches of the tree, now almost completely naked, jostle around in the wind as to spook off intruders to its domain. A few lucky few leaves still remain attached to the branches. They desperately hang on as the wind loosens their grip, and will soon batter them off into the depths of the dark, silent, and gloomy forest. It is hard to imagine that these aging trees stood tall ages before our ancestors.