Many will travel north to Arkansas or east to the mountains to view the annual changing of the colors as nature puts on a show of leaves, shifting from greens to fall splendors.

But you don’t have to travel out of Winn to find some pretty nice snapshots as the leaves here (except pine) change to those autumn hues before turning brown and falling.

When I spot the bright reds or yellows that some trees offer, I’m reminded of a poem we studied in high school by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called “Ode to the West Wind.”  He describes this time of year when the brightest colors from their October peak are beginning to fade, soon to be blown away by the wind.  One descriptive sound bite that has stuck with me all these years is, “Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red.”

For a little culture in the Journal, we share a few lines from Shelley’s opening description:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed.

(There is much more to his Ode).