Praise Him with Harp and Lyre. Praise Him with Acorns.

I have a new favorite sound of fall: acorns hitting a tin roof. There is violence in the collision between seed and metal. Up in my office, in my half-story, I hear them overhead: Crack. Clunk. Fall. They bounce loudly sometimes: Paink. Pink, pink. Do the squirrels sleep in the midst of this forceful manna? Or does it make them even more twitchingly nervous? I like to think it calms their tails and quiets their whiskers, soothing them with the sure knowledge of food for tomorrow and for the winter that approaches.

Oaks are beautiful trees, so liberal with their acorns and so conservative with their leave - good and true trees. They are hoary old fellows, wrinkled with age. And though they are not autumnally attractive - their leaves simply brown on their limbs - they say fall, they praise, just the same as the golden pecan trees and the dazzlingly bright maples. But they say it percussively, with acorns striking tin roofs.