Foliage:

I wrote this yesterday:

Walking around campus in the fall, I often see the outlined remnants of leaves that dawdled on the walkways before being pushed off into the eternal anonymity of earthbound foliage. For some reason seeing these ghostly shadows of Vermont scenery singed upon the concrete makes me think of the unfortunate people incinerated under atomic bombs, who leave nothing more than a shadowed trace of themselves on the sidewalk. This is a gruesome way to think about the leaves which fall and float so peacefully to earth in our bucolic locale, but without fail every day I walk out the door and imagine bomb blasts as I see the leafy carnage haphazardly strewn about by the merciless wind. Sometimes I can hear them screaming.

I wonder -- how is it that leaves just leave their impression like that on the sidewalk -- and while I am wondering this I inadvertently come to the realization of why they’re called leaves in the first place (for they’re always leaving themselves strewn about, those leaves).