Fall Colors

I saw a tree on fire and wondered at the exquisite drama of these autumn days.

    Do landscapers know what fall leaves will look like when they plant a long row of trees? Do they visualize the parade of color?

 
   "What a discovery! She could not get a satisfactory answer from anyone about what in heaven’s name these flowers thought they were doing, showing up here at the cold beginning of autumn, leafless and unprotected, just when all else was dying. “They are autumn crocuses,” Beatrix told her.

Yes, clearly and obviously they were— but to what end? Why bloom now? Were they stupid flowers? Had they lost track of time? To what important office did this crocus need to attend, that it would suffer to put forth bloom during the first bitter nights of frost? Nobody could elucidate.

 “That is simply how the variety behaves,” Beatrix said, which Alma found to be an uncharacteristically unsatisfying answer. When Alma pushed further, Beatrix replied, “Not everything has an answer.”

                   Gilbert, Elizabeth (2013-10-01). The Signature of All Things: A Novel (p. 60).