Man feels the need to rake leaves, clean up the summer’s remnants, proclaim his tenancy by making things neat and tidy. Nature doesn’t bother. The tree thrives on its own trash and the see sprouts in the parent plant’s midden heap. Each new season grows from the leftovers from the past. That is the essence of change, and change is the basic law. Nature hasn’t time to be neat and tidy.

Hal Borland
Harold "Hal" Borland (1900-1978) American writer, journalist, naturalist
“Autumn’s Clutter,” New York Times (11 Nov 1962)
    (Source)

Reprinted in Sundial of the Seasons (1964).