24 October 2026 – I’m waiting for the red light to turn green, out there on a Kitsilano street corner, but, mostly, I’m admiring a flaming yellow-orange tree. This tree, ‘way over there on the right against the brick wall.

Red light turns green, away I go. Thinking, as I go, about green trees turning red.

All part of the seasonal shift, and I enjoy the added bonus of a pun: each fall (whenever it happens to be fall, in your hemisphere) the chlorophyll curtain falls… and all those other colours are finally on view.

Oh, the maple trees! A child of eastern Canada, I’m big on the bravura performance of our maple trees each fall. For good reason a red maple leaf is smack-central in our flag.

But, this year, I’ve started noticing other trees, other shrubs. I’m paying attention to the delicacy of their shade ranges, as chlorophyll drops away. I am amazed by what I start to see. (Isn’t that the way? First, you have to look. Then, you see.)

This, for example…

and this…

and this, my absolute favourite. Theme and variations.

Now that I’m paying attention…

Days later, seated at a bus stop in the east end of town, I idly glance backward through the glass. At first the view is an unprepossessing tangle of background gas pumps and foreground traffic bric-à-brac storage, including a white barricade. There is also a something-or-other wrapped around the barricade, and my idle gaze sharpens to interest.

No bus in sight. I have time to walk around the bus shelter for another angle.

I laugh out loud. Somebody (probably waiting for a bus, killing time) found a bit of construction warning tape, wound it around one end of the traffic barricade, and neatly inserted into it… one leaf, caught in its brief, bright moment of glory.

Well, of course somebody went to all that trouble. We do love the leaves of fall!