An Autumn leaf tells
This Autumn is the perfect season to see leave colors. After a slight frost early in October the weather has been excellent, 10-20 degrees Celsius and sunny all the time. Nature is showing its colors, from bright yellow all the way to scarlet red. I feel nature is also like a man. Summer is his youth, young, vigorous, and driven. Autumn is his matured season, relaxed, therefore, showing his natural side.
I recently start to have a feel for oak trees. Oak is almost ubiquitous here in the northern America, nothing special, not splendid or pretty, nothing like that. I start to have a feel for it because it starts to take a root in my heart just as Lao Huaishu(老槐树) did in me years ago when I lived in China. Lao Huaishu (汉槐）is the tree of my hometown. It is the most commonplace tree in my village. Wherever you go in northern part of China, you will find a Lao Huaishu in a village. It is often old, unbalanced, or sometimes half dead. But, it is always there, surviving through its remaining branches and leaves. The same are true for oak trees. When the Autumn colors are in their full spectrum, while maple shows off its red and birch of its yellow, oak tree turns into brown, a dry brown. It is like an old man, too tired to make any display. It seams he directly goes home without saying goodbye.
During the summer, oak leaves are the greenest, so green that they look dark and muddy just like a Lao Huaishu's. Biochemistry tells that color of a leaf is dependent on the chlorophyl and carotenoid in it. Chlorophyl is the green molecule that absorbs sunlight to supply a tree of its energy to grow. When a tree stops making the green molecule and its chorophyl reserve is gradually depleted in the Autumn, its background color such as yellow and red, the color of different carotenoids, shows up. When you look at the brown color of the Autumn oak, it is a mix of red, yellow and green. I guess that oak has so much chlorophyl inside its leave that it never has enough time to show its elegance in the Autumn.
Between life and elegance, an old oak chooses life, although it looks a bit less attractive to the eye in the Autumn season. To this end, I don't think the old oak wants to go home at all.
An Autumn leaf tells.
这个秋天是观赏秋色最好的季节。十月初的薄霜之后，天气一直很好，10-20度，阳光充足。从亮黄色到猩红色，大自然在这个时候展现了它颜色的丰富多彩。我觉得大自然跟人一样，夏天是它的青年期，年轻、富有活力、奋发向上，而秋天则是它成熟的季节，放松，自然地流露着它本质的一面。
我近来开始对橡树产生了一种感情。橡树在北美很寻常，不特别，不壮丽，不漂亮，就是很普通的那种树。我对它有所感触是因为它慢慢在我心里扎了根，亦如多年前我在中国生活时老槐树在我心里扎下的根一样。老槐树是我故乡的树，是我们村里最普通的树，你到任何一个中国北方村庄都能见到它。它通常苍老，树冠歪斜，有时甚至半边已经死亡。但它始终矗立着，靠它残留的枝叶顽强地活着。橡树亦然。当秋天怒放出它的万千色彩，枫红，桦黄的时侯，橡树在这时变成了棕色，干枯的棕色。此时的它就像一位老人，由于年老体衰已疲于任何表现，它似乎要径直回家了，一声再见也不说。
像老槐树一样，橡树叶在夏天是最绿的叶子，绿得甚至有点深暗。学生化的人都知道，树叶的颜色由它内部的叶绿素和类胡萝卜素所决定的。叶绿素是一种绿色大分子，树木通过这种大分子吸收太阳光，来供给自身成长所需的能量。当树木在秋天停止叶绿素的合成，绿色退去的时侯，它的背景色，如由不同类胡萝卜素所决定的黄色和红色，就显露了出来。当你仔细观察秋天橡树的棕色时，你会发现它其实并非单纯的颜色，而是红色、黄色和绿色的混合色。我想老橡树是存着太多太多的叶绿素在它的身体里，秋天它总是没有足够的时间去展现它的优雅和美丽。
在生命和优雅之间，老橡树选择了生命，虽然这让它看起来缺乏美感。从这个意义上说，我想老橡树或许根本就不想回家。
一片秋叶道出了一切。
二OO八年十月二十二日