Cycles

It is winter here and the trees are still in the process of losing their leaves. I try to rake as seldom as possible, not because I am lazy, but because I love the pools of colour that fall around the trees. The Japanese maples shed orange and red, the apricot and quince yellow. A neighbour's tree, a tree camelia I think, drops white and yellow 'poached eggs' on out driveway.

I think of Monet when the garden is like this, the whole palette of colours, daubed seemingly at random, and yet so properly, across the ground.

And there, in the leaf mulch below, the new season is already stirring.

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