Just outside my window, reaching an arm to frame my view, stands a young oak tree. He has taken the place of the grand willow left behind in Powell River.
Instead of willow boughs swinging sinuously in the breeze, now curled brown leaves fall translucent with autumn sun. 
Only they don’t just ’fall’. They dance their way to the ground swooping and twirling—one last fling before winter. In so doing they catch my eye and are a great distraction from sitting at my computer trying to string words together…
So I succumbed to their charm and composed a haiku to celebrate.
Curled leaves sashay down
Glowing gold though life is spent
Transfigured in death.
And since one verse couldn’t quite capture their grace, I wrote another:
Riding morning breeze
Oak leaves swirl dancing carefree
I watch in envy
And another.
Flurry of oak leaves
Fly wild outside my window
How can I sit still?
But when I did go out in hopes of capturing their image in flight I was surprised and sidetracked by a ‘rafter’ of turkeys [yes, that’s the technical word for a group of them; and now we’ve both learned something new!] happening by…
(They’re definitely not as good looking as eating— American Thanksgiving here we come!)
Alas, the leaves are mostly fallen now,
And blown away besides–thanks to the cyclonic winds of our new leaf blower that has no sense of the beauty of fallen leaves, 
only of tidy walkways…
The rains have returned after an exceptionally dry summer
And some subtle first snow flakes fell scarcely seen first thing this morning…
The dancing days are done. It’s time…
to stow away gathered seeds, 
Well, almost time. Maybe I can wait a little longer…
till the turkeys have stopped meandering about and have been eaten,
till the trees have all put away their fall color…
and till I’ve dug out some candles to brighten a darkening world in their stead.
–LS
For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness. Ps.18:28
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jn.8:12
While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night,
shall not cease.
Gen.8:22