A Sideways Kind of Light

November.  Thanksgiving.

We're getting close to  winter as the sunlight gets weaker and and wobblier, it also gets slanty.

And that accounts for the changes in our perceptions.  For example, a merely yellow tree turns into solid gold, and the leaves into golden coins.  It's only at certain times of the day or just after a storm.  Perhaps it is merely in our imaginations.  But the autumn sun does something to our colors and what we expect of them.

We expect them to dazzle.  These roses I captured today on a walk.   They are rosier than they were a month ago, the reds sweeter and more seductive.   The maples now  orange and red transmogrify into a rich and succulent merlot.  The frosts shed all the leaves on an Aspen in one night.  And the dark browns move through the caramels and the bronzes into a deepening mahogany molasses. 

Then it's time for a long, sweet nap, before the first tulips find the February sun and hold it accountable.