October is orange.  Of course.  But it is also a red that is so full of depth and dimension and fiery-varience it can hardly be described.

My neighbor’s Maple has languoriously (not a real word, I know), gone from deep late-summer green, the leaves still fully affixed due to mild fall days and nights, to a light-to-deepening golden peach-to-orange over the past week.  Then yesterday, I swear, as I walked back into the family room with with a hot cup of coffee, it went red.  Just like that, before my eyes.  It nearly took my breath away.  Moments before, a glowing, lovely amber-rusty orange, then, poof.

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Red. A fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet.  A puce, a rufescent russet,  a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once.  It is shimmering and irridescent fuschia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby.  It is bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy.

October is orange.

October is red.

“The well of nature is full today.  Time to go outside and take a drink.”  ~ Diane Ackerman quote.  Photo, piknicked, of course.  Vignette.  Cropped, etc…This photo was taken Oct. 22, 2010, but it looks almost exactly the same out my window today.  Almost.

October is Cardinal.  See?  RED!