Autumn's song
Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity;
but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.
~ Hal Borland
Autumn is an introspective time for some. It is for me. The impending winter will have me indoors much more than I prefer to be; autumn is sort of like that last kick at the can. And what a kick!
Hard as one may try, can anyone of our senses be denied in autumn? Can anyone ignore the artist’s palette in the transforming landscape; the heady smell of fallen leaves piling up whether on a city sidewalk or a forest floor and especially when it rains; the graceful and rhythmic rustle of walking through dry piles of them; the soft wool scarf wrapped loosely around the throat to preserve our own inner warmth?
Poets oppose each other in words, metaphor and stanzas - a time of endings versus a time of renewal... For me autumn has never been a sorrowful time but a time of reflection, of gathering bits of myself that have transformed, taking stock. Time spent in preparation as we do for winter with food in the larder, wood in the shed, battening down the hatches readying for harsher times. Autumn is a time for harvesting all that I have sown and like Babette’s feast feel ready to invite the masses to the table. We may not for always survive the winters or the harshest of times but for this moment we can be thankful for the gift that is life; the change of the seasons; and for one another. Autumn is that rarest of gift.
If I were to ‘play’ autumn it would be on a violin.