All on a Scarlet Morning

Rounding a corner on her morning walk, she can hardly believe her eyes and stops to take in the scene.

A villager left his shiny new pickup truck in the driveway overnight, and it is blanketed in leaves falling from the great sugar maple that watches over his house and garage. The tree is an old one, and abetted by the wind, she has dropped showers of scarlet leaves on the red truck, its owner's garden, his roof and cedar hedge, all the way up and down the street.

Tucked in here and there among the scarlets are tantalizing golds and oranges and limey greens, sometimes all present on the same leaf. The glass in the truck's windshield captures and holds not just the leaves, but morning sky, the old maple tree branches overhead and nearby leaf strewn shrubberies.  The scene looks like a painting by one of the French impressionists. Dazzling background, dazzling foreground, dazzling everything...

There is rain and wind in the forecast, and within hours, these vivid wonders will have faded and dwindled. How lucky she was to be here and see them.