Minnesota Prairie Roots

LATELY I’VE BEEN so focused on driving somewhere to view the fall colors that I’ve failed to notice the autumn splendor in my backyard.

But when Arkansas relatives stopped the other day and remarked on the brilliant foliage, I paused to look. They were right.

My neighbor’s maples are ablaze in eye-popping orange and golden hues dappled with green.

And behind my house, the single maple is transitioning from green to yellow.

Curling leaves already carpet the lawn.

When I stepped outside early Thursday morning to hang laundry on the clothesline, I paused, basket in hand, and stared at the cobalt blue sky. Only in autumn do you see a sky so profoundly, deeply, purely blue.

I set the basket down on the steps. The wet clothes could wait a minute or ten. I rushed inside, grabbed my camera and aimed toward the sky, the trees, then toward the ground to those fallen leaves…

over to the petunias

and the hydrangea

and the mums.

God’s creation, in glorious splendor, awaited me. And on this day, I chose to see the beauty He had given to me, right in my backyard.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling