Transcendentalism in the Nonotuck Bioregion #3
How did I get waylaid by the beauty of these weeks? I blame those many days when late afternoon sun flared up the leaves, a match lit in every one, making the trees look like Chinese lanterns, the rising Berkshire hills like cities of paper with all the lights on, luminescent walls colored in crayon by children.
luminescent walls
I watched the Parsons cut their cornfields like barbers shaving the beard of a sleeping giant. The stubble is all that’s left now, a five o’clock shadow that extends for acres to the edge of the forest beneath Mineral Hill, parallel dotted lines of cut stalk on the bare black soil.
The avalanche of apples has stopped, only the early winter apples hanging still. They’ll be picked soon or freeze, thaw, ferment and become food for slightly drunk deer, coyotes and bear.
Every creature retreats back into the earth, or whatever cozy interior they find to curl up and hide in. The reaper of harvest has moved to the south, replaced by the spooks and monsters of halloween; the golden days of gathering gone, the days of cold barren arrived.
I was waylaid because I wanted to roll in the glow of Fall like a dog on the carpet, and that glow lasted for weeks before it ashed into gloom.
Is following beauty, hunting for colors, a waste of time? I leave that for you to answer. We do agree, I hope, that Fall in New England is a phenomenon unique on our planet, a month or two when our biome—our creatures, geology and climate—expresses its soul.
Westhampton center just after dawn 10 23 09
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