A pumpkin couple pose in Westminster. Vermont's piece of U.S. 5 may be called the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Highway, but the former president's nickname, Silent Cal, seems an inappropriate moniker for this din of screaming colour. Sumacs shriek beside the two-lane road, their irate leaves flushed wrathful red.
Maples bellow yellow and orange chants as they wave limbs at the sky, clear and blue.
Oaks chatter, birches babble and willows gab in a clamour of coloury gossip. Everywhere, entire hillsides stand in rousing ovations. The arboreal multitudes hail the vivid arrival of autumn in Vermont. Instead of snarling chaos, the bucolic countryside seems cloaked in charisma. Here, people smile and the colours do the talking.