Quote of the Day (Alexander Lawrence Posey, on Blowing Autumn Leaves)

“The air is filled with
Scarlet leaves, that, dropping,
Rise again, as ever,
With a useless sigh for
Rest—and it is Autumn.”— Muskogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist Alexander Lawrence Posey (1873 –1908), “Autumn,” originally published in The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey (1910), reprinted in American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (Vol II: Melville to Stickney, American Indian Poetry, Folk Songs and Spirituals), edited by John Hollander (1993).
 
For several hours last night, the wind was as wild as I could remember at any time so far this fall. So fast did the leaves blow and scatter in the path of my car that I couldn’t imagine any leaf could remain in any tree in my neck of the woods of northern New Jersey.
 
(I took the image accompanying this post 12 years ago this month at State Line Lookout, Palisades Interstate Park, in Alpine, NJ.)