Creative Synthesis: Mummies and Ginkgos

I went for the mummies hanging in the trees. What I found were the ginkgos.

The yard had won “Best Overall” for its eerie bodies wrapped in spidery cocoons swaying from tree branches. I wanted my husband to see it, simply because it was spectacular. I’m more a fool for Halloween than he is, but those upside-down bodies!

When we turned and left the house, the sun at the end of the street lit up the ginkgos, those trees that trigger for me Dylan Thomas’s admonition: Rage, rage against the dying of the light! My mother’s motto, she who would roam our neighborhood in the fall, searching for the stunning leaves of the ginkgo trees. Miraculously, she could identify the ginkgo even when it wasn’t in golden mode. The spellbinding mastery of adults.

On the mummy street, the ginkgos had been planted to create a row of show. They are my favorite. For while all the other trees give into the fiery blaze of gold and red, the ginkgo insists on butter.

Soft, creamy, smooth-as-churned-butter waving in the wind.

Its yellow could pass for springtime.

We all get to decide how to die.

Here’s to creative synthesis . . .