Tag Archives: autumn

What’s really liquid.

THE STOCK MARKET LOSES FLUIDITY

I’ll show you what’s really liquid—it’s this sunlight pouring down
from the west, from the great glass jar of the sky. The creek playing
its little tune, running over the stones. The descant of syllables
in the mockingbird’s song. For not a single hickory nut
banked by the squirrels will gain any interest.
Not a grain of wheat in the wallet of a chipmunk’s cheek
will increase in worth. The bear’s fat layer is its IRA.
Here in the woods, it’s autumn’s great investment portfolio; look,
everything’s turned the color of money: copper, brass, gold.

-Barbara Crooker

 

 

 

They preach without a sound.

THE WITHERED LEAF

Oh! mark the withered leaves that fall
In silence to the ground;
Upon the human heart they call,
And preach without a sound.
They say, So passes man’s brief year!
To-day, his green leaves wave;
To-morrow, changed by time and sere,
He drops into the grave.
Let Wisdom be our sole concern,
Since life’s green days are brief!
And faith and heavenly hope shall learn
A lesson from the leaf.

-William Lisle Bowles

Stanislaw Zukowski, A Walk in the Woods

To the creek and back home.

Four days in a row I’ve taken a walk along the creek path. During the two or three months previous, while I was working hard in the garden, traveling, or concentrating on other various things, I could not seem to do this most leisurely and beneficial thing for  myself. Well, I’m starting again. Autumn seems to be good for new beginnings, in my case.

The top photo shows you how green and grassy and leafy much of the creekside scenery is, but leaves are turning in a few places, such as on this grapevine coming through the fence from someone’s backyard:

And a few trees with yellow leaves are letting them fall now, too. Some are silver maples, I found that out from my Seek app.

When I get back to my place at the end of these walks, I now have several new plantings to look over as I go up the front walk, like the Swiss chard and other greens, which I’ve gotten smart and planted in the front yard, because that’s where all the sun is:

In the back garden I did get the new manzanita planted, and the succulents replaced around it. I cleaned up the pine needles that had been making a thicker and thicker blanket on the plants in that area, and finished just before dark, when it was not good lighting for a picture. The wind came that night and brought down more pine needles, which I have yet to clean up. So I’ll show you McMinn (my name for the new bush, a “Howard McMinn” subspecies) another time. Here is one of the darling new succulents that I added there. I did pull the needles off of that one.

The weather has been unusually warm even for California. It was 80 degrees yesterday. But rain is coming again and will cool things off. It remains to be seen whether I will venture forth in the rain the way I did last year. Every day’s a new day… Will I find new ways to keep good habits? Maybe, with God’s help.

Endlessly gently in his hands.

Egon Schiele, Four Trees

Today is Saturday, and I am attending a wedding, which is a cause for joy. According to statistics, 70% of weddings are held on Saturdays these days, but in the Orthodox Church Sunday is the preferred day. Sunday is The Lord’s Day since the Resurrection, and the day for celebration and feasting, while Saturday is the day of rest, when we remember those who have fallen asleep in death and rest in their graves. Here is another poem that ties the remembrance of death to the season, and to the One who mitigates our sorrow over it.

AUTUMN

The leaves are falling, falling as from far off,
as though far gardens withered in the skies;
they are falling with denying gestures.

And in the nights the heavy earth is falling
from all the stars down into loneliness.

We are all falling. This hand falls.
And look at others; it is in them all.

And yet there is One who holds this falling
endlessly gently in his hands.

-Rainer Maria Rilke