What Leaf Peeping in New England Taught Me About the Meaning of Autumn

Trees Don't Really Turn Colors, and Fall Signifies New Life, Not Death

The migration north happens every fall. Just as the V-formations of Canada geese head south, flocks, groves, and busloads of “leaf peepers” head to northern New England from all over the globe. They come to watch the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire “blush,” and soon discover that they are chasing a moving target.

Our wild palette of reds, purples, golds, oranges, and yellows infused with a backdrop of green is the result of the physical and metaphysical interplay of time and space. Geography mixes …

The 1938 Hurricane That Revived New England’s Fall Colors

An Epic Natural Disaster Restored the Forest of an Earlier America

This morning, while driving in central Vermont, listening to the latest news about hurricanes in Florida and Texas, I caught up with my first leaf peeper of the season. …

FALL’S MIRROR

Flat on
my back

staring
up at

a map of
my own

mind the
elm tree’s

black
branches—

nothing
left to

catch
the wind.