L is for Leaves

A couple of weeks ago I raked up lots of leaves from the Sycamore tree which is in next door neighbours garden but right against the fence, thinking there were still so many left I would have to do it a couple more times at least. But the rest of the leaves must have gone the other way as it's nearly bare now and I've not raked again so far.

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves

No better than spoons,

And bags full of leaves

Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day

Like rabbit and deer

Running away.

But the mountains I raise

Elude my embrace,

Flowing over my arms

And into my face.

I may load and unload

Again and again

Till I fill the whole shed

And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight;

And since they grew duller

From contact with earth,

Next to nothing for colour.

Next to nothing for use.

But a crop is a crop.

And who's to say where

The harvest shall stop.

                                   Robert Frost (1874-1963)

This is the order that some trees shed their leaves - according to one of my books of Weather Lore.

"Starting with Walnut, Sycamore, Horse Chestnut, Lime, Ash, Beech and Oak, Apple and lastly young Beeches and pollarded oaks which sometimes keep their leaves until they are pushed off by new ones in spring."

I found this painting by googling  'Autumn Leaves' - I rather like it and it fits in so well with this post.

Autumn Leaves by John Buxton Knight 1842-1908

Not an artist I've heard of.

John William Buxton Knight RBA (1843 – 2 January 1908), English landscape painter, was born in Sevenoaks, Kent.

He started as a schoolmaster, but painting was his hobby, and he subsequently devoted himself to it. In 1861 he had his first picture hung at the Royal Academy. He was essentially an open-air painter, constantly going on sketching tours in the most picturesque spots of England, and all his pictures were painted out of doors. He died at Dover on 2 January 1908

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Sue