A little Fall color

Some of the trees have started losing their leaves in my yard, which is not surprising. I don't have too many trees with spectacular fall color, but I do get to see some color for a few days. I've got a few silver maple trees, and their leaves usually just turn yellow or brown before falling, so I was a little surprised and confused by this leaf:

It's the only maple leaf like this that I saw, so I knew I had to get some photos.

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Besides the fact that it's got a lot of red in it, the patterns are just so beautiful!

So intricate, complex, and wonderful. Red, yellow, burgundy, black... a little green left in places. Just amazing!

Backlit leaves must surely have been the inspiration for stained glass windows.

The texture of it almost looks like skin when viewed up close like this:

Ok, lizard skin maybe. Or tattooed skin.

There is a pretty short length of time between my almost reverent admiration of the beauty of these first few fallen  leaves...

...and my almost vehement complaining about having to rake even more leaves out of the yard and planting beds.

I better enjoy this while I can.