Leaf Withdrawal

It happened in one day: My Japanese maple shorn. We went away, and we came home, and the tree had shed itself of color. In the morning, when the moon still hung so fat and wide between the white panes of my window, I crept outside and photographed what I had thought of as the tree.

Now it is pure architecture out there—all structure and bone collecting (as I write this now) the newest shimmer of moon. My friend Alyson writes from Wyoming about her own bright moon, and Grete writes from an ocean beyond, and Kris writes from Los Angeles—all of us watching the colors shift and the moon fatten, then go cold.

This is life in its broadest sketch, and in its most intimate tones.