A Perfect November Tree

Give a child an especially vivid box of crayons, and ask her to draw a perfect fall tree. She might come up with something like one of the small maples bordering our North Vineyard lawn.

Maybe because the sky was gray today, yet with open pockets where the sun shone through.

Maybe because for being so late in the season, it is surprising such brilliant colors linger.

Maybe because it's a perfect lollipop of a tree canopy, a dollop of bright orange from a distance, yet in close range, individual points of crimson, gold and orange.

Maybe it is the growing carpet of shed leaves at its base, a reminder that nothing gold (or crimson or orange or scarlet) can stay.

For whatever reason, this is the tree that captured my eye this fall.

My third autumn in the vineyard, and I anticipate the seasonal change: The startling scarlet of Virginia Creeper climbing gnarled tree trunks, harbinger of all the colors yet to come.

The buttery yellow and gold and red of the shrubby sassafras, with its cheerful mitten leaves.

The corky bark and brilliant foliage of the otherwise inauspicious sweetgum.

Every year, I anticipate the vistas surrounding the vineyard, watching one species steal the thunder from the last, taking mental photos of the perfect fall vista, when everything seems at its peak.

For whatever reason in this wet and wacky growing season, the colors did not seem to change in their usual succession.

The vistas I anticipated never seemed to arrive, as the cottonwood lost all its leaves before the tamarack turned tawny. 

So, I had pretty much written off this fall's foliage season. 

Until November 1, when this perfect maple chose to reveal itself.