by Elizabeth Cunningham
Every October, as I gaze at pockets of golden cottonwoods stretching across the Taos Valley, I liken their crowns, reaching up to embrace the sky, to tethered balloons about to lift off into the atmosphere. As I watched the ascent of this past weekend’s balloon festival, the notion seemed not so far fetched. The vibrant, multi-colored inflatables appeared to rise out of the trees.
Autumn at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, cottonwoods decked out in hues ranging from the brilliance of sunflowers or ripe lemons, to deeper tones of egg yolk or saffron, sometimes deepening to roseate tinges, to shades of amber. I share a love of these venerable, 100-year-old trees with Mabel. She refers to them throughout her book, Winter in Taos. I offer her words and my photos in homage to the cottonwood.
The trees change color quickly now…they are showing every shade of yellow against the dark mountains.
After the trees are fully turned and are like torches of fiery yellow, often with coral red tips, and others are big balls of radiant, sun-colored loveliness…
The sunshine seems yellower, and it blazes down in a full, walloping kind of heat that is intense because of the cold edge already in the air.
We watch the trees change color rapidly now.
When the leaves are flying in the autumn, they gather together, all the delicate ones, meeting in the big trees…
The leaves shiver a little and begin to rattle on the branches.
The yellow leaves we gathered…Why do lovely things last so short a time?