Tag: fall

Shake Me Like a Cry

barnstormingblog3 Comments

The scarlet of maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
to see the frosty asters like smoke
upon the hills.
~ William Bliss Carman

It is like the blowing of taps, this last blast of color before the rains and winter.  There is quickened heartbeat and choking back tears at seeing the vividness outlined by robins egg-blue sky, each maple a torch aflame about to burn down to ash and smoke.

The bright palette is too much to take in all at once.  If only it could spread out through the year and not last only for a week or two when I’m relegated indoors in long work hours and weekend harvest preservation of fruits and vegetables.  I so wish to be two places at once, to be two people, to be more than I am.

So I must harvest autumn in words and pictures, just like preserving the garden and orchard in jars and bags, someday to refresh and restore when gray pervades and mildew threatens to overpower, when hunger for fall shakes me wholly, like a sob.

Like a cry for how it used to be and how it one day will be again.

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

August Rain

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

20120819-093640.jpg
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.” — Sylvia Plath
Just past mid-August and the leaves are already showing hints of summer fatigue, curling and yellowing around the edges. Photosynthesis has become a repetitive chore.

Like them, there is only so much sun I can absorb before I say, “Enough!” and beg for clouds and drizzle. Dig a little and my roots cry out for a drenching downpour.

I fear the best has passed me by and I wasn’t paying enough attention to know. It is an already-but-not-yet limbo of anticipating autumn’s descent into dying when I fervently hope I’m still very much alive.

This is an odd and uneven time of recognizing what is to come so I must slowly loosen my grip on what has been.

The time to let go is coming.

Just not quite yet.

There’s work to do, chores to wrap up.

Then not yet may come, drenching my roots.  I’ll be ready.

20120819-094348.jpg

Photos by Josh ScholtenCascade Compass

When the Light is Just Right

barnstormingblog1 Comment

End of October
dreary
cloud-covered
rain and wind.

An instant at dusk,
the sun broke through,
peeling away the grey,
infusing amber onto
fields and foliage,
ponies and puddles.
The shower spun
raindrops threading
a gold tapestry
through the evening air,
casting sparkles,
a sunray sweep of
fairy godmother’s wand
across the landscape.

In the sky appeared
a double rainbow tiara,
radiant and beaming
with momentous promise.

One more blink,
and the sun shrouded,
the color drained away
the glimmer mulled
into mere weeping
once more,
streaming over
our farm’s fallen face.

Now I know to gently
wipe the teardrops away,
having seen the
hidden magic within,
when the light is just so.

Savoring the tears
of gold that glisten
when the light
is just right.