Musings: On the editor's mind

Last week’s rains and the weekend’s winds knocked the last of this year’s leaves off area trees. Broadleaf or conifer needle, all fell like the rain that battered them to the ground.

Just like that, autumn’s leaves are gone. The variety of colored puddles, reflecting their tree crowns above, were already pretty much raked, blown, ground and sucked up by humans bringing order to their yards.

The leaf shadows are now only a memory, a journal entry, poem fragment or watercolor sketch, if captured in some physical form. Many a leaf will be captured by gardeners and homeowners, headed for their com...