Autumn leaves are now.....falling?!

"Autumn leaves are a-falling...red and yellow and brown...autumn leaves are a-falling...see them fluttering down. "

Those were the lines from a nursery rhyme that rang in my mind when I saw all the leaves scattered around the neighborhood as I made my way to work on the morning of September 2, a Thursday. I learned that nursery rhyme back at kindergarten in the Philippines where our teacher required us to stand up while singing it, and had our hands fluttering in the air as we sang the words 'red and yellow and brown' pretending to catch these autumn leaves. Until now, I am still wondering why we had to learn that song when there is no freakin' autumn in tropical countries like the Philippines. We only had very green leaves. Yes, we have brown leaves -- from dead plants. And I don't ever remember seeing yellow ones. Red ones maybe -- from seasonal poinsettias. Now, if I could just remember the name of that teacher. Ha-ha-ha!

Anyways, back to the typhoon.

Contrary to the nursery rhymes, these leaves scattered around were not red nor yellow nor brown! They were green!

Yes, fresh green leaves were all blown away from the trees overnight by a visiting typhoon, 'Kompasu', which is Japanese for 'compass'. The typhoon also toppled trees, damaged agricultural farms and caused some trains to halt services.

Fortunately, it did not bring that much damage to my neighborhood, except for those fallen branches and a pile of leaves that would require lots of sweeping.

I hope that when the next sweeping of leaves has to be done, it would be for real autumn leaves -- all red, yellow and brown. And when that nursery rhyme rings in my mind, it would be in autumn when the breezes would be more gentle, not howling, and the skies would still be blue, not gray.