It is December 1st and the leaves are gone after a long slow autumn filled with golden glory. 

Every year I forget that what comes next is equally wonderful, although it is more muted in its palette.  With the leaves gone, the underlying arboreal architecture of trees always draws me in.  I get lost in those dark lines fanning out ever thinner and higher.  Forty years ago, I used up precious rolls of film photographing acacia trees against the startlingly brief Kenyan dusk.  My first digital SLR image was of a tree silhouette at dawn. Those inky, ebony lines against an ever-changing sky get me every time.