The just-over-the-horizon sun this morning lit a landscape of late fall trees in and around a brilliant green golf course and a cluster of white houses with rust red roofs amid more brightly-leaved trees. The whole scene was laid out on the other side of the wide mouth of Hunting Creek, that charming bit of wetland that somehow survived or renewed itself after so much development sprang up on all sides: highways, apartments, houses and stores, yards, parks and more. Each color of autumn, brown, nut, deep velvet, scarlet red, oranges, golds, yellows and tans, was splashed on the living canvas before me. And the just-risen sun shone squarely on that natural stage, a spotlight showcasing the show just getting underway. I was glad I had walked that direction to the bus stop and deep down, I considered getting to work late or maybe not even going at all, just to watch this marvel unfold, an event not likely to be repeated quite like this ever again.
Catching the sun's gold...
Today at lunch I walked down a street lined on both sides with Ginko trees, those marvelous creations with branches lined top to bottom, end to end in gold. Ginkos are hung with such distinctively unpleasantly pungent fruit to keep them humble lest they become proud for being garbed so splendidly. These trees today were half finished with plenty of leaves on the tree, as well as on the ground forming a carpet on the brick sidewalk. The effect was just as brilliant and eye catching as the scene this morning. Both then and now the sun was shining directly on something bright, further highlighting the already vivid colors. This Ginko cathedral pleased me so much that I walked several blocks to where it ended, then turned around to walk back down the shimmering nave again. Like a regretful pilgrim leaving Notre Dame (some places in the world are painful to have to leave, they’re so beautiful, so wondrous, so other), I kept stopping and turning to look back and see the high leaves (the trees were 50 feet tall; some of the tallest Ginkos I’ve ever seen) in different lights from different vantage points. Since the sun shone on the trees from behind me as I walked up to the altar, I had to keep turning around to see the glory as I walked back.
The cathedral's gold leaf
