Maples Giving Forth Light
November 17, 2014
“The maples give forth light, like closer suns. The oaks glow with garnet fire, and all the thickets blaze with scarlets and pale gold and cinnamon. It is like the music of a trumpet.”
— Gladys Tabor, Stillmeadow Daybook
“The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can.”
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from “Christobel”
Everything is On the Run
November 1, 2014
Fall Wind
by Aileen Fisher
Everything is on the run —
willows swishing in the sun,
branches full of dip and sway,
falling leaves that race away,
pine trees tossing on the hill —
nothing’s quiet, nothing’s still,
all the sky is full of song:
“Winter’s coming. Won’t be long.”
Everything Falls
October 30, 2014
“It is the fall. And everything falls — not just the leaves. The temperature falls as the earth again tilts away from the sun. Darkness falls more quickly as the days shorten. Plants droop and dry up and break apart. Trees fall into dormancy and stop growing. Their leaves and seeds fall into the cool air, and then to the ground, where they will rot and root and become something new. This is the season of decay — a word that means “to fall away” — to return to your constituent parts, to what you are made of.”
— Tom Montgomery Fate, Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild
The Sound of September
September 30, 2014
The Season of Painted Leaves
October 8, 2013
Storing Health: Why Leaves Change Color
September 25, 2013
“The thing about trees is that they know what to do. When a leaf loses its color, it’s not because its time is up and it’s dying, it’s because the tree is taking back into itself the nutrients the leaf’s been holding in reserve for it, out there on the twig, and why leaves change color in autumn is because the tree is preparing for winter, it’s filling itself with its own stored health so it can withstand the season. Then, clever tree, it literally pushes the used leaf off with the growth that’s coming behind it. But because that growth has to protect itself through winter too, the tree fills the little wound in its branch or twig where the leaf was with a protective corky stuff that seals it against cold and bacteria. Otherwise every leaf lost would be an open wound on a tree and a single tree would be covered in thousands of little wounds.”
— Ali Smith, Artful
Acorns with Their Shingled Cups
September 24, 2013
Happy Autumn!
I’ve always found acorns to be quintessential symbols of autumn. I enjoy painting them.
Acorn
by Valerie Worth, from All the Small Poems and Fourteen More
An acorn
Fits perfectly
Into its shingled
Cup, with a stick
Attached
At the top.
Its polished
Nut curves
In the shape
Of a drop, drawn
Down to a thorn
At the tip,
And its heart
Holds folded
Thick white fat
From which
A marvelous
Tree grows up:
I think no better
Invention or
Mechanical trick
Could ever
Be bought
In a shop.
Around the Color Wheel in Autumn
November 9, 2012
Back in July, I posted a mini-series called “Walking the Color Wheel.” As I walked around Seattle, I paid special attention to the colors of summer — reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples. With this post, I’ll take you around the color wheel again to share my enjoyment of the colors of autumn.
Seeking Radiance on a Road Trip to Chelan in Late October
November 2, 2012
“Travel alerts the eye and humbles the hand. Its final destination is radiance: to be transported . . .”
— Patricia Hampl, Blue Arabesque
“The hunger for wonder is appeased by nothing as it is satisfied by travel.”
— Patricia Hampl, Blue Arabesque
I spent the first few days of this week in eastern Washington (east of the Cascade Mountains) in Chelan at a work conference. I was able to arrive early, on Saturday, and spend two days there with my husband before settling in to work. Other than a long-ago boat trip down Lake Chelan to Stehekin many years ago, I had not spent any time in Chelan. So it was fun to explore. We drove along the lake shore on both sides of the lake until the roads dead ended. The area is surrounded by dry hills and mountains, yet water is a central feature of the landscape — both Lake Chelan and the Columbia River dominate the views. We drove along rural roads dotted with vineyards and orchards. And even though it was cloudy and rainy at times, we did find plenty of radiance in the fall colors. My hunger for wonder was appeased.
Here are some photos:
Scarlet and Yellow, Golden and Brown
October 24, 2012
Scarlet and yellow,
Golden and brown,
Winds of October
Blow all the leaves down.
Tear from the branches
Their curtains and spread
Carpets of color
Beneath them instead.
Glittering with rain
Or ablaze in the sun,
Falling in showers
Or dropped one by one.
Scarlet and yellow,
Golden and brown,
Winds of October
Blow the leaves down.
As far as I know, this is one of the few times that I am repeating a poem that I have previously posted on this blog! I still can’t find the author of this poem, which I first read in a Waldorf school parenting class. It certainly fits the landscape around Green Lake this week.