Autumn #phenology

Once again I find myself wondering, if leaf color kept changing every season except bare branch winter, would we still find it as attractive as we do in autumn? I’ve noticed that, near the end of August, the green that was so exciting back in April and May has kind of overstayed its welcome. Is it just me or are we humans restless creatures always wanting more or different or both? As Wallace Stevens notes:

V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

Even the pine tree along the drive has needles that are about half gold. They’ll drop and new ones will grow. I’ve not paid much attention to the tamarack swamp recently but when I looked within the past couple of weeks, those needle/leaves were still green. Their gold will come soon and, as Robert Frost informs us: Nothing Gold Can Stay.

leaf color is coming on

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we’re mentioning not staying, today we saw numbers of flickers, probably those from Canada on their way to warmer, more southerly climes like here, east central Minnesota. (Things I never expected to write.) There are fewer, and fewer, hummingbird females and juveniles at the feeders this week. The males left earlier this month. It couldn’t have been the weather because we’re once again in the 80's today.

Perhaps I should stop analyzing and try to just enjoy the moment while living in it. That is all we ever really have while we’re here, isn’t it?

Fall Song

by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures. 

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