The day the leaves came down

A strong southerly wind is clearing the remaining leaves from the trees, including many of the oaks. The air is intermittently full of clusters and flocks of brown objects searching for places to land. I’m glad I haven’t yet cleared the garage roof and the gutters. I’d just have to do it all over again.

air cluttered with flutters

Photo by J. Harrington

As I write this, the local temperature is 72℉, which ties the 1978 high temperature for this date. Today’s high is forecast to reach 76℉ and that looks very doable from here.  I’m not really going to complain, because it’s definitely better than that white, flaky, stuff that sometimes starts falling around this time of year in the North Country, but it is weird, even for All Souls Day, to see the air cluttered with flutters.

Will we get a period of grace or will we, a week from now, immediately be subjected to campaigning for the 2024 elections? I am seriously thinking about foregoing television and social media and the news. I’m also wondering who profits from keeping the American public in a constant state of agitation or, perhaps I’m just more easily agitated than most.

In some non-segued good news, it appears that I have resurrected, once again, my sadly neglected sourdough  starter, using a technique from Sourdough by Science. I’lll report back further after I’ve made a levain and baked a loaf with this version. Other unrelated news: we’ve maintained our record of no trick or treaters at our door since we moved into this house. Our granddaughter did arrive in her dragon costume, leading both her parents, but since she’s family I’m claiming she doesn’t count as a “real” trick or treater.

Prayer for Words

N. Scott Momaday - 1934-

         My voice restore for me.
                           Navajo
 

Here is the wind bending the reeds westward,
The patchwork of morning on gray moraine:

 

Had I words I could tell of origin,
Of God’s hands bloody with birth at first light,
Of my thin squeals in the heat of his breath,
Of the taste of being, the bitterness,
And scents of camas root and chokecherries.

And, God, if my mute heart expresses me,
I am the rolling thunder and the bursts
Of torrents upon rock, the whispering
Of old leaves, the silence of deep canyons.
I am the rattle of mortality.

I could tell of the splintered sun. I could
Articulate the night sky, had I words.

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