It's a gorgeous sunny day, and the Lang courtyard maples' leaves are already almost full size and deepening green in taking best advantage of it.
But perhaps you've been wondering what's become of that red maple branch which came so close to my office window this spring, and allowed me rapturous witness to the magical procession from bud to flower to growing samara to leaf. It's a little complicated. The short version is that the branch is broken.
Not completely, but it dangles down now rather than reaching up. Here's how it looked last week; below is the way it's looking
now.
I
can't remember a branch so close before. I even encouraged students to
reach out the window and touch it! But the very thing that made it available for my devotion put it at risk. When the wind eddies in the courtyard, branches brush against the windows. No surprise that some will have snapped from the collision.
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