Slow burning beech leaves

I had missed the morning passage of the Canada Geese Express—that collection of large numbers of waterfowl moving from the shallow lake near the house to the nearby shorn corn fields on the other side of the ridge. But I was bound and determined to catch the return flight in the late afternoon. When I heard the first honking, I grabbed my camera, raced down the driveway, turned right, and ran down the hill to the field where I'd get a good view and a fine camera angle. The geese, however, decided to take more circuitous route home, so I was left to listen and enjoy the last golden light of the day. It turned the beech leaves, which were already golden, an even deeper color. Of course, just as poet Robert Frost noted, "nothing gold can stay." With that in mind, I was hardly surprised to discover that that the golden glow was in the process of disappearing: a slow burn into ashes and leaf litter. It's November. Gold is increasingly hard to come by.