7 posts tagged “autumn”
It is at this time of year, the final third, with the three-syllabeled months and early shadows that predict the quickening of its domain, that I feel its presence. Like the tides that feel the pricking of silver hooks in their watery skins, I am pushed and pulled and reminded that now is the time.
During the warm months, it is a jealous, white shadow, hanging in the humid, seductive sky. Its cold women, crescents dangling from their ears, stars melting into their hands, are content to wait.
Until now. And the hooks in my skin tell me also that the wait is over. The moon - call it hunter's, harvest, blood, corn, barley - has returned, its chilled ascendancy sharp and frosted in the evening sky. It shines with a metallic light, a cloth of silver that charms the heavens so much that the nights become longer, so that the lively fabric could be enjoyed that much more.
When the equinox rides high in the sky, climbing the burnished galaxies, the harvests below emerge from the mothering earth and her erupted, buried seeds. I can smell the flavors and colors in the hard, cold air. I shiver with the wet, vermillion leaves, the early shadows and the piercing breezes, heavy with rain and living things.
I see an orange moon brushing darkened fields, a white moon chilling the constellations, a yellow moon that warms autumn's firmament. Autumn carries in her arms the produce of busy populations, leaves that crackle like fire, grains that are woven into loaves of bread. She wears bracelets and ropes of pearls, but only a single pearl rests on her brow - a symbol of her most perfect jewel.
They were waiting. Their shapes were wilting; the fine edges becoming dim and unfocused, like aged eyes. Their chlorophyll was running thin through a green cartography that was drying into faded rivers. The palm print of Summer pressed with an alchemist's anticipation - but the leaves, the waiting leaves, fought the heated transformation.
The triumph of Spring was over. Their birth had finished, when they had emerged in verdant curls from stems thick with the muscular promise of a growing season. Their green scent had been dainty and cool; Persephone's fragrance heralding her return from black obscurity.
But now the sun had run rampant across the sky; his heat turning the blue eternity into a blank wilderness. The leaves curdled during the fierce day; their fatigue betraying their internal botany.
So they were waiting.
They were waiting for the season of harvests; for the smell of horses waiting in the yellow fields, shivering under a rising equinox: they were waiting for the sunsets to burst in their veins, so they could fall once more into the darkness.
There's a tree that I notice every morning, because it takes pity on me. During the autumn days it murders its chlorophyll for me and lets its cadaver leaves turn red and yellow.
Because it knows that I'd prefer it, this tree will let those crisp leaves fly - although there is no breeze to lead them on a wintry dance. And when they reach the ground, they weave a starry carpet for me to walk on.
This sympathetic tree colors itself cranberry, pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon - the scents of a harvest kitchen. It must be difficult - and a little heart-breaking - to voluntarily drain the life out of its green blood, but I find its efforts rather touching. It stands alone amongst its vibrant neighbors and is not ashamed to lift its rebellious head to the censorious sun.
There is much that this tree has sacrificed: the living filigree of veins in its arms and fingers, the web of nerves in every limb - enabling it to feel every creature that visited its arboreal dark - the shine of perennial youth. All this it relinquished so that I could imagine its life on chilly acreages and forget the audacious growh all around me.
There is a time of year when growing things become weary of their summer fabrics. They flinch in the winds returning from a cooling migration through distant climates. They shed their pastels and charts of primary colors - shrugging them to the ground like discarded cloaks. They then shrivel and pale in the thick, golden sun and shiver in the white stare of the harvest moon.
Trees have spent the year bored with their chlorophyll sameness. Some are condemned to keep the same color throughout the year - their leaves either pins and needs, or viscous green pools: depthless and still. When the third season arrives, their limbs tremble with anger, thinking of their more flamboyant, fortunate cousins.
These are the ones that feel the crackle of color seeping into their veins. And although they fear fire, they flaunt that anxiety, mimicking the flames. They hold the hot, electric leaves like feverish bouquets in the crevices of their arms. They know their enemy well, and are able to reproduce its terrifying heat; their leaves fall to the ground like dying sparks.
And when they have abdicated their crowns of gold and bronze; when the last scarlet ember has fallen away, their branches will be fearsome: silhouettes of broken fingers. Their lost color will swirl about their roots like lava, like an incandescent palatte: licking the ground like a pack of hounds.
This is the fire season, when the trees make their danger beautiful; when they welcome nature's hot embrace, and when the flames will drip from their bodies like sweat.
I mean well. It's true that I don't speak Rodentia, but my attempts at communication are frequent and sincere. I like squirrels. I'm not like my mother. ("They're taking over the city!")
There are some very fortunate trees in front of my workplace; they act as arboreal condos for many handsome squirrels. There have been occasions when I would take a look at these trees - out of gratitude for their dark shelter on a summer's day, to see if their leaves finally decided to defy Nature and change color, to admire the lovely sculpture of their bark.
The last time I took this opportunity, I saw something else...a puff of black-tipped fur from behind the trunk; suddenly there and then just as swiftly gone. I slowly traversed the circumference of the tree and came face to face with a gray and tan squirrel, with a plump, harvest-season figure. I asked it several pertinent questions: "Hiya Squirrlie! Whatcha doing?", "Whatcha doing up there?"
We stared at each other, in such a way that I knew it saw my face, wondered what I was, why I didn't have anything intelligent to say, and whether if had any nuts to offer (I didn't). This visual consideration lasted several seconds - it was only then that it decided to be frightened and I heard its tiny claws rattle on the bark as it scurried upwards.
It stopped. It wagged its tail - in farewell? And then it disappeared into the branches.
I generally tend to ignore motorcycles. To me they are loud and uninteresting, like so many things in Los Angeles.
But when a motorcycle decides to truss itself up for the holidays, I feel that I must reassess my opinion.
Walking home from work today I noticed that the bike was gone, leaving its autumnal accoutrements behind. I rather believe that its owner rode his bike out, after parting the pumpkins carefully - and when he returns he will just as carefully pile them high once more.
People must find their holidays where they can.
Yes, all at the same time! I'm announcing my first post on Vox and I'm announcing my anger at the look and feel of Los Angeles less than a month before Thanksgiving. I'm probably cleaning my oven too, but that would be patently ridiculous.
Now. See those trees? To the right? All burnished gold and stuff? THAT'S what I'm talking about! Deciduosity rules! But roundabout Southern California all we seem to have are evergreens - the few trees who are good enough to lose their leaves during the Autumn merely become spontaneously Bleak. No brilliant sheafs of orange and yellow.
The only time I've seen a show like that was when I was in England - in Oxford, actually - right around this time of year. The leaves were SCARLET. The sight of that and my nearly getting run over by a student on his bicycle made for a very eventful afternoon.
And don't get me started on the weather - oh, now, just don't! - 80 degrees in October I find offensive. I know that people really suffer through a snowy Autumn and Winter, but this just ain't right. Out of rebellion today I wore a wool skirt, boots and a long-sleeved shirt. I wasn't too comfortable, but I'd like to think that I looked darned snappy.
I'd like to end this screaming session with a mention of a very Vital Book. A picture of it, anyway. Read it. Learn it. Love it.
