Five Minute Friday: Green

Gentle Reader,

Spent last evening hanging out with a couple of my godddaughters and so missed the chat. I was exposed to “Lalaloopsy.” Parents, I applaud you for not tearing your hair out. What happened to cartoons?!

Kate directs us to write about: green.

Go.

The leaves on the maple tree in my front yard put the best of Monet’s paintings to shame. There is no doing justice to the subtle shifts of color, no capturing the way the light plays on each shade. Dark and mossy nearest the grayish brown limbs fades into a true green, then a bright kelly. The delicate ends of each leaf are splashed with lime. Hints of yellow and orange mark the changing of the seasons.

A gentle breeze, full of crisp autumn notes, stirs the leaves into a symphony. They clap against each other, rustling and shushing. A few of the less tenacious members flutter to the grass below. Veins, rapidly drained of water, stand in bas relief against the paper-thin background. This green will disappear, swallowed up in a riot of burgundy and prairie winds.

The grass stirs in shifts and shadows. Its texture is not that of high summer. It neither fresh nor inviting. This grass is ready for the sleep of winter, the green expanse pockmarked with bleached blades that feel like hay beneath my fingers. Well-worn pathways trod by paws snake this way and that.

The world begins to close its shutters. Rose leaves curl up and drop to the rocks in the flower bed below. Each day the green of the daylily bunches is sapped by white-gold. One morning soon I will awake to glittering frost. The green will be gone, tucked away in the sleeping trucks of trees and the soft earth far beneath the hard surface, waiting to burst to life come spring.

Stop.

Pssst! Look here! The cool people over at DaySpring are hosting a major giveaway just for you awesome readers who have been so encouraging to those of us involved in the 31 Days challenge. Click on the image below to enter!