Fall in June

This from naturalist and photographer Thomas Hook, of Southbury, Conn.:

“Was driving up Old Sherman Hill Road in Woodbury (Conn.) today and saw these two leaves out of the corner of my eye and stopped to get a picture. I went home and got the right lens and came back to take another shot. These were the only two autumn leaves in an expanse of green.’’

In response to the picture, another New England Diary friend sent part of the first stanza of Maine native Edna St. Vincent Millay’s (1892-1950) poem “The Leaf and the Tree’’:

“When will you learn, my self, to be

A dying leaf on a living tree?

Budding, swelling, growing strong,

Wearing green, but not for long,

Drawing sustenance from air, 

That other leaves, and you not there,

May bud, and at the autumn's call

Wearing russet, ready to fall?’’