They're a lot like this avenue of Lombardy Poplars on Slab Road, fresh and green all summer, now fading. As I drove by yellow leaves drifted listlessly in the chill breeze. It feels like summer's over and I missed it; like winter's almost here and I'm not ready. The falling leaves bode.
They bode of the slow dark days ahead when the soil is endlessly damp and the fingers chilled, when vegetables don't grow, but if you pull a weed it just puts down roots and keeps going. In the depths of winter, summer is an impossible dream.
Add to this upheavals on the family front, and the Autumn Yellows deepen. It's a melancholy time of year, with everything trending down, from sunlight to growth to farm finances.
So the yellow leaves drift over the road and are pushed to the verges by the passing cars, there to rot and steep and give off that smell peculiar to poplars.... and next spring, hopefully, there'll be green shoots again...