Sunset, Wednesday, 4 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

During the night, the paulownia tree by the house shed its leaves. Paulownia leaves don’t change color and gently fall, their green sours, then one night they freeze stiff – big and curled – and in the morning drop nearly all at once. As the sun came up this morning I heard them hitting the ground in quick succession, clinking against each other like pieces of china.

Among them I found a perfect paulownia flower, a tightly wrapped purple bud. I had to laugh at the fellow traveler. 180° out of season, it had waited for a different way to unfurl.