Leaves the Morning After

Superstorm Sandy (as our Weather Channel has been calling it) left our area in western Massachusetts virtually entirely unscathed. My sense that peak gusts didn't reach more than 50 mph (80 kph), and rain was somewhat sporadic and never really heavy. By midnight skies were clearing. (To be sure, higher elevations probably had higher winds--we're in the Connecticut River Valley.)

Therefore there were no real storm scenes around which might have conveyed any drama. But I was struck by these leaves and stems scattered just outside our back door, in a manner that I had never seen before.