“G” Street, La Porte, Indiana (1943)
The street where I lived was narrow and shaded by towering maple trees. In the fall the maples were clad in shades of red, of subtle yellows, of fading greens, and of brilliant orange. But then the winter came and tore the beauty from their bows, leaving them naked and shivering. The cold, rainy days of early winter were magnified by the starkness of the vacant limbs, stretching outward and upward, reaching for the warmth of an absent sun. Where blue sky had framed the brilliant orange sphere of comfort, layers of mottled gray denied the needs of tree and man for warmth, for comfort, even for hope. The street where I lived was narrow and lined with aging hulks of dying timber, stark and pitiful in the cold drizzle of an early winter.
Winter came to the street where I lived, and gentle snow gathered on the towering maples, covering their nakedness in a cloak of white. Each night brought fresh garments to the maples that lined my narrow street, but each day attempted to tear their garments away. On occasion, the silver moon of winter shone down on the snow-covered maples, and for just a few hours they appeared to dance in their shimmering gowns as the north wind choreographed their movement. There was beauty, even in the absence of the reds, yellows, greens, and orange. Despite their nakedness and their gaunt limbs reaching out to a now apathetic source of warmth and comfort, the maples that lined my narrow street made me emotionally aware of beauty; beauty that does not come from how one is clothed or how one is nurtured, but beauty as a quality of adapting and of celebrating changes of the seasons and of the cycles of our lives.