The Great Out-of-doors...[x-posted]
I left this state at 19. Now, back at 30, I realize how much of an impression the physical surroundings of Nature had made on me. Since October, we have seen:
Fall: bright reds, oranges, and yellows of deciduous foliage, then like sheafs of paper dropped from the Empire State Building, mass accumulations of color pooling on all ground surfaces. Eye-attracting swaths of painted fire below skeletal trees. Unique flood conditions swelling childhood rivers, streams and ponds to before-unseen depths. Spare, reddish-brown end-of-fall backdrops to stands of stark white birch trees...
Winter: Snow. Real New England snow. Piling up everywhere in drifts and depths. Trees weighed to bending under it, housetop avalanches thundering in the late afternoons, everything dyed blue and white at dusk and dawn, milky cold sunrises and tea-colored wan sunsets. Unseasonal melting to the mud and another temperature drop to the below-zeros. A warming, and another few feet of snow. Inappropriate footwear, no parkas, no salt, no shovel. Ill prepared for a "mild" NH winter...
Spring: First, the crocus and daffodils. Then the tree buds, the grass, the insects and the dandelions. A too-short season of flowering trees: two magnolia varieties and something akin to dogwood. When their steam shortens, here come the coral-cherise colored quince and the blazing, mustard-yellow forcythia bushes. The rains let up for the pinecones to bud and the delicate white and purple violets to push skyward. Late spring air becomes hazy with pollen and cloyingly scented with lilacs, rhododendrons and azaleas. The skies come alive in late hours with bats and the sound of squalling tomcats v. fisher cats.
Now, Summer: The dandelions have relinquished to the clover, white and pink and purple pom poms all over. The earth smells as if always just-rained-on. The lightning storms at night flash in silent hellfire, silhouetting white early-american homes. Deep, dark, rustylooking ponds are alive with minnows, crawfish and hollow-throated bullfrogs. The stars are endless here.
I am home.
Fall: bright reds, oranges, and yellows of deciduous foliage, then like sheafs of paper dropped from the Empire State Building, mass accumulations of color pooling on all ground surfaces. Eye-attracting swaths of painted fire below skeletal trees. Unique flood conditions swelling childhood rivers, streams and ponds to before-unseen depths. Spare, reddish-brown end-of-fall backdrops to stands of stark white birch trees...
Winter: Snow. Real New England snow. Piling up everywhere in drifts and depths. Trees weighed to bending under it, housetop avalanches thundering in the late afternoons, everything dyed blue and white at dusk and dawn, milky cold sunrises and tea-colored wan sunsets. Unseasonal melting to the mud and another temperature drop to the below-zeros. A warming, and another few feet of snow. Inappropriate footwear, no parkas, no salt, no shovel. Ill prepared for a "mild" NH winter...
Spring: First, the crocus and daffodils. Then the tree buds, the grass, the insects and the dandelions. A too-short season of flowering trees: two magnolia varieties and something akin to dogwood. When their steam shortens, here come the coral-cherise colored quince and the blazing, mustard-yellow forcythia bushes. The rains let up for the pinecones to bud and the delicate white and purple violets to push skyward. Late spring air becomes hazy with pollen and cloyingly scented with lilacs, rhododendrons and azaleas. The skies come alive in late hours with bats and the sound of squalling tomcats v. fisher cats.
Now, Summer: The dandelions have relinquished to the clover, white and pink and purple pom poms all over. The earth smells as if always just-rained-on. The lightning storms at night flash in silent hellfire, silhouetting white early-american homes. Deep, dark, rustylooking ponds are alive with minnows, crawfish and hollow-throated bullfrogs. The stars are endless here.
I am home.