As Autumn -- leaves fall

Today. for the first time in months, I'm wearing a heavy flannel shirt. The outside temperature is 60℉ and I’m enjoying every bit of it except the chronic cloud cover. Sunshine tomorrow, rain over the weekend, and not an 80℉ temperature in sight. Things are looking up, and, while we’re looking up too, we’re seeing more and more leaves turning color. The Department of Natural Resources Fall Color Finder is predominantly green, less than 10% color, but we’re seeing overnight increases in leaf color other than green.

color changes have started

Photo by J. Harrington

No signs yet of roadside pumpkin sales, and I’ve not yet picked up our usual pots of chrysanthemums to go along the driveway. Maybe later today or tomorrow. When I looked about a week ago, the selection was both sparse and poor.

I’m sure you’ve been waiting with bated breath to learn that it appears we’ve been successful restoring our sourdough starter. We won’t know for sure for a few more days, until we’ve made dough and baked, and tasted, a loaf, but the starter looked all happy and bubbly yesterday and we’ve started a levain that should rise overnight and be the basis for dough making tomorrow. This could work out with wonderful timing, filling the house with warm bread aromas over a rainy, cool weekend ~ if only I’d planned it that way! But, that reminds me: “No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck!”

Fall

Edward Hirsch     1950 –

Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season 

Changes its tense in the long-haired maples 

That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves 

Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition 

With the final remaining cardinals) and then 

Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last 

Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground. 

At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees 

In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager

And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever 

Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun 

Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance, 

A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud 

Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything 

Changes and moves in the split second between summer's 

Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment 

Pulling out of the station according to schedule, 

Another moment arriving on the next platform. It 

Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away 

From their branches and gather slowly at our feet, 

Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving 

Around us even as its colorful weather moves us, 

Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets. 

And every year there is a brief, startling moment 

When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and 

Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless 

Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: 

It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; 

It is the changing light of fall falling on us. 

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