Yesterday, while preparing Italian sausages and bell peppers for dinner, I heard it outside. Like knives, cold and metallic, hitting each other. I dropped the peppers, grabbed my phone from the console, and hurried to the sliding glass door in my family room. I had been right about what I had heard.
Outside the wind was hurling its breath at the trees, sending some of the leaves to fly horizontally. I slid the glass door open and braced myself against the wind and the cold — the weathermen had been right about cooler temperatures hitting us. Some leaves from the cherry and Japanese Magnolia trees flew at me and landed on the deck. The early evening was already gray and murky, and even some of the leaves were of coal shades. Some brown ones on the ground spun up and pirouetted.
I remained on the deck, watching the wind slice through the air and send the tree branches shaking. I was amazed at the fury that the wind blew. I was equally amazed at the remaining green leaves on those branches, how they stubbornly held on.
Fireflies and Daffodils 