#autumn sunshine
Monday morning was one of sudden changes in the weather, when drenching showers rushed across the sky chased by dazzling autumn sunshine, which lasted only a few minutes before it, too, fled away to the east, pursued by huge black clouds lit up from time to time by a beautiful rainbow.
Algy hopped up into the wee cherry tree by the feeder for his smaller fluffy friends, and revelled in a short-lived burst of golden light. This poor wee tree had struggled for many years to grow in the challenging local conditions, and it was rare that it held its leaves long enough for them to “turn”, but this year had been kinder than most, and Algy was delighted to see that for once it had a chance to display its glorious autumn colours.
From time to time a golden leaf fluttered to the ground as the wee birds stocked up on supplies to get them through the chilly autumn night, and somewhere, hidden in another tree behind Algy’s head, a robin who was evidently more concerned with higher things was singing his autumn refrain:
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
[The robin is singing the poem Fall, leaves, fall by the 19th century English author Emily Brontë.]
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