Leaf time- A personal season

Despite the fact that our seasons are known as spring, summer, autumn, winter, and are dutifully marked off in our almanacs and calendars, we can give them our own names according to our whims and impressions.

Thus, I'm now living in my own Leaf Time season. It started way back when the tiny leaves of the pussywillow and "Frog's Tongue" leek started to unfurl but I probably called it Tulip Time.

When the trees and shrubs make their big bold color move, that is the beginning of my Leaf Time. I'm back now where my window views are in all four directions. I know what splashes of color I can expect but it's good, once again, to witness them, first hand.

Over in the park there is the maroon of the many mighty oaks. It's a deep and sturdy color. Somehow it reminds me of the bass section of an orchestra, undergirding for the more playful instruments, or, in this case, the gypsy colored dancing of the sweet gums, sugar maples, dogwood, etc., leaves.

Standing alone like some crimson exclamation mark in the sugar maple, I brought it from our farm home when it was about 18 inches tall. It wasn't the time of year for such a transplant and I only half expected it to live and wondered, if it did, if the change of soil would change the beautiful red color. It lived! The color has not changed. I have never seen a tree like it and I've paid a lot of attention to trees, especially during my Leaf Time season.

Not only do I love the dramatic change in color; I enjoy the movement of the leaves as they fall toward the earth. On damp days they come down quickly and fairly straight as if anxious to complete their life cycle. On warm sunshiny days they drift down and maybe far from the tree as if in no hurry at all.

However they come down I'm always reminded of and repeat aloud the childhood poem, "Come little leaves said the wind one day. Come over the fields with me and play. Put on your jackets of red and gold. Winter has come and the days have grown cold."

That's not the end of my Leaf Time joys. There is the smell of them burning. This is getting rare as everyone knows, because of our fire hazard restrictions.

There are others who love Leaf Time as much as I do. One is Leo Buscaglia, author of many books "for all those eager to accept the challenge of life and to profit from the wonders of love." He speaks of his love for the crispness of the autumn fallen leaves.

When neighbors, trying to be tactful about the accumulation of leaves in his yard, hinted how they could easily remove them, he ordered them to bring the leaves inside and dump them on his living room floor. They did. He thoroughly enjoyed the handling of them, feeling the brittle texture of them, perhaps crushing some of them in his hand to hear the crisp sound.

While visiting Wisconsin in the fall, he was presented with a bagful of wonderfully colored fallen foliage. He took the bag back with him on the plane to the West Coast. Imagine boarding that plane in these enhanced inspection days.

Would the bag be summarily seized? The owner of the rustling bag removed from the plane? If I had a plane seat next to him I'd be in agreement with the handling of the situation, but I'd like to have the bag of crisp, autumn-smelling leaves.

Hey! I could have someone bring me a vase or panful of leaves -- crimson, gold, russet, multi-colored. Martha Stewart, where are you? I won't burn any in any ashtray, I promise.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.