Hay-Colored Leaves

When Louise Excell was growing up in Springdale, there were fruit-bearing mulberry trees lining both sides of the street all the way through town. They were absolutely full of fruit—white mulberries, black mulberries, red mulberries—which attracted huge flocks of hundreds of birds (inspiring Louise to be lifelong birder). The children’s hands would turn purple with the juice from those mulberries. But one by one, the trees were cut down for development. Louise said that, sadly, there’s no place for mulberry trees in Springdale anymore.

(To hear this song, click here.)

Skipping down the lane goes Louise
Running with the wind through the mulberry trees
Down to Grandpa Dewey’s ’round the bend
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out
A peppermint

The birds always sing for Louise
Every Christmas day she counts all that she sees
With their songs in her heart she believes
That the birds are forever, and so are the trees

     But the hay-colored leaves
     Keep falling, falling, falling
     Cascades of yellow
     Keep falling
     She’s skipping through the patterns that they weave
     And they keep falling, falling, falling
     The hay-colored leaves

Slowly down the lane comes Louise
Time has not been kind to the mulberry trees
The streets have been widened and paved
A house on each lot and the trees
Could not be saved

She longs for the songs she once heard
But the melodies are gone, gone with the birds
At the first hard frost of the year
The old autumn wind blows cold through her hair

     And the hay-colored leaves
     Keep falling, falling, falling
     Cascades of yellow
     Keep falling
     She’s passing through the patterns that they weave
     And they keep falling, falling, falling
     The hay-colored leaves

     And the hay-colored leaves
     Keep falling, falling, falling
     Cascades of yellow
     Keep falling
     She’s skipping through the patterns that they weave
     And they keep falling, falling, falling
     The hay-colored leaves