It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels.
Dylan Thomas, Poem In October
In the center of the turnaround in front of our home is a hillock surmounted by a very tall deciduous pine with lacy needles, which is home to our resident Virginia Creeper. The vine has ascended high into the tree, and tree and vine appear to be living in symbiotic harmony. By early October, the vine becomes a dark maroon leafy boa interwoven among the mid-green needles of the tree, its ends drooping near to the ground as they seek to return to the earth from which the vine originated. Seen from our kitchen window, it is as if we are blessed by a living Christmas tree decorated solely and miraculously by nature alone.
For most of the year, our Virginia Creeper is pleasingly evident but not showy. Its main stem is largely invisible within the body of the tree, while its nascent tendrils stream vigorously in the violent storms of Spring and their mature versions wave lazily and nonchalantly to the tune of the zephyrs of Summer. During the long months from April to early September, I sometimes wish the vine was a bit shorter, but never enough to complain aloud to my wife for it is no more than a pleasant distraction at worst, and, at best, a reminder of life’s constant urgency to extend itself, even in seemingly absurd niches. In the words of songwriter Marc Cohn:
Without Elvis
Without Jesus
Life goes on
Without anything it pleases
Life goes on*
But, come late September, our resident Virginia Creeper suddenly turns a deep maroon seemingly overnight and, in so doing, changes from an integral symbiotic component of tree and vine into a vibrant, stand-out tree trimming, its main body materializing from its previous invisibility among the combined greenery. It is only now that the true extent of the Virginia Creeper becomes clear to the untrained botanist’s eye as the red/green mix of needle and leaf becomes fully exposed. For most of the year, host and visitor are separately magnificent, but during these few short October weeks, they merge into a singular, standalone, patchwork being: no longer a symbiosis, but a single living harbinger of Fall’s beauty and instigator of memory.
The Virginia Creeper is almost exhausted this morning, many of its leaves fallen to the tarmac and mixed, in death, with the many needles already shed by the pine. But the vine clings on to the tree and to life, its very weariness nothing more than another expression of life’s constant struggle. The vibrancy of its peak colors are now diminished to the shriveled grace of a season well lived as it prepares itself for hibernation during the coming Winter. The pine continues to stand tall, now more spare for want of many needles, but yet green in the manner that only a pine can be, deciduous or not, throughout the coldest months of the year.
This annual transformation always reminds me of the many other Autumns stretching back to those of my childhood. While walking by a pile of early-shed leaves a couple of weeks ago on my way to lunch in the city, I received this year’s initial enjoyment of leaf mold. The evocative smell was elusive and tantalizing then, but with the reddening of our Virginia Creeper I know it will become prevalent in days to come.
And, as in each previous year of my orphaned adulthood, when I walk our property enveloped by leaf smell, I will be mentally jumping into the self-same leaf piles my parents watched me jump into during those long-ago family walks down tree-lined, small-town, eastern Washington streets – even while they are now at rest and I am too stiff to do so in reality, and even while my grandchildren are doing so in company with my children down tree-lined streets elsewhere in time and place.
* Marc Cohn, Life Goes On, Join The Parade
