By Rev. Geoff Leslie

When European poets rhapsodise about Autumn, it is the flame colours of their trees that touch their soul. While many Australian towns boast great displays from imported trees, our native Autumn carries a subtlety and wonder that is in no way inferior.

Across from my home the Yellow gums and Ironbarks have been flowering in such profusion for a month that we are often woken by the raucous calls of Noisy Friarbirds feeding on the nectar in the dawn.

The bush is dry and bare, panting for rain, but white daisies and bluebells are flowering bravely and the Red gums are healthy green after the summer.

In autumn there is a turnover of the bird population. Some, like rainbow bee-eaters, kingfishers and trillers head North for warmer parts, while the currawongs and flame robins return from their summer mountain retreats to the warmer plains for winter.

Most remarkable are the little waders that we find on the salt pans and shallow lakes around our district. Some, like the Red-necked Stint - a bird smaller than a blackbird - is booking a flight to its breeding grounds in Siberia and Alaska about now. They take a pretty direct flight to get there but on the return journey in October they may enjoy stopovers in China, Taiwan or the Philippines. What could we do with all those Fly-Buy points!

The Northern Hemisphere's celebration of Autumn is really a celebration of the colours of dying. As the leaves expire, the green vigour of their strength fades and bleaches into fiery hues, but this deception is actually the shroud of plants going into a winter coma.

The sunny days and chill nights of our Australian autumn highlight colours almost as rich on the roadsides and forests but the cause is life not death. We have wattles, heaths, gums, and scrub that flower throughout the autumn and winter. The saltbush turns rust-coloured, and the new shoots on the young gums are blushing red.

Our swallows stay all year. Our seasons are not as clearly defined or as reliable. While the cycle of summer, winter, life and death speaks eloquently to our northern relatives of life and meaning, perhaps our seasons have a unique symbolism that we should not miss.

Autumn for us brings great relief. The heatwaves are past, the demon sun has lost its power to scorch. Where a month or two past we sought refuge in shady groves and shuttered the sun from our homes, now we lap it up on our verandahs and entice it in through wide-flung windows. This helps us remember that hard times pass and that the very thing that hurts us can be a source of joy and pleasure.

Autumn is not so much a season of 'drowsy bees', 'mists and mellow fruitfulness' as English poet John Keats portrayed it. For us it is a time of new vigour. Now that the heat has passed, work is easier. It is time to split firewood, and gather it in from the forest.

For farmers, the harvest is mostly passed, only the rice growers still tractoring on. But already they prepare the ground for new crops, and everything waits in hope for the autumn break, for sowing to begin.

Dairy cows are now lessening their output as their time of 'drying off' approaches, but already they swell, getting ready for the spring calving.

Relief. New vigour. Hope for the future.

God's endless creativity is seen in His delightful colourful touch, painting the sunbaked countryside with fresh surprising hues.

That's what I see in our Australian autumn.

I just wish our forebears had not planted these deciduous trees that break our backs with rake and wheelbarrow!