Something whispers to you in the wind, and you can't tell quite what it is. Some days are still hot--some even VERY hot. Yet there is a certain something you can't put a finger on. Is it that the sun is a little farther to the south? Is it that the nights are cooler even when the days still grow hot? Is it the sun coming up later in the day? Going down earlier? I don't know, but somehow as I grow older, even without looking at a calendar, I can always tell when fall is around the corner.
I don't know if "fall" is really the fitting term for this season, unless it means another year is about to fall. It just seems so unpoetic, for a season that is so beautiful, spectacular, and yes, in a way, melancholy. Autumn looks and sounds like such a beautiful word that as I get older I find myself using it more and more. So autumn it is. My favorite season of the year.
There is an odor that comes with this glimpse of fall, an odor you can't associate with any other time of the year. Perhaps it is the scent of decay, but a soft kind of warm, glowing decay, telling stories of the gradual death of the summer grass, the leaves of the hardwoods. Subtle changes come into the sky, into the clouds. The light seems to hit them a different way. The birds seem enlivened, perhaps by those coooler nights. I've noticed my beautiful meadowlarks singing more, serenading me from the sage behind the house. This was particularly true when a grumbling and rare early morning thunderstorm woke me up early yesterday morning and made me run out to cover the last of the hay, which I had neglected to put the boards back over. While I was at the barn, the rain came down, and I went inside and listened to it patter pleasantly on the roof. Then, for a few minutes, the sun came back out, and I made my dash for the house.
After I came back in and the rain charged over the mountain in one very heavy, dark sheet that I could see cascading toward us like a ghost in a B movie, it began to soak the land, if only briefly. It was after the rain that the meadowlarks came out in droves, and I lay in bed and thought of my friend Stephanie, who so loved the meadowlarks. It was such a moment as this when I would have loved to call her and share, would have loved to hear the excitement in her voice. Like me, it was the simple things about life that brought joy to Stephanie and made her eyes sparkle and put a huge smile on her face, dimpling those cheeks. But since I can't call Stephanie anymore, I sat and remembered her and dreamed her near. My beautiful little wife, Debbie, and I lay warm under the covers breathing in the fresh, clean air and listening to those meadowlarks, and the day was as perfect as it could be. And somehow I knew Stephanie was out there in the sagebrush, or walking through the forest to the west, and she, too, was listening to those meadowlarks.
The lightning flashed, and the thunder cracked sharply, and then, like a stubborn child, it lingered and grumbled and rattled its way on into the distant mountains. Fall is on its way. Autumn, beginning with September, "The Hunting Moon." Or, in Cheyenne, the Moon of Drying Grass; Kiowa, Moon When the Leaves Fall Off; for Sioux, Moon When the Plums are Scarlet. So maybe the Indians had a much more poetic way to describe their "moons," or months. Our name, "September," means simply the ninth month. But I guess it's poetic enough, in its own way.
The important thing is fall is almost here, and although it signals a coming time of cold and dreary days, it is a glorious season that no one should miss being in the middle of, even if it means getting away from the TV and going for a walk in the mountains. Maybe we'll run into each other out there.
Vaya con Dios.
I don't know if "fall" is really the fitting term for this season, unless it means another year is about to fall. It just seems so unpoetic, for a season that is so beautiful, spectacular, and yes, in a way, melancholy. Autumn looks and sounds like such a beautiful word that as I get older I find myself using it more and more. So autumn it is. My favorite season of the year.
There is an odor that comes with this glimpse of fall, an odor you can't associate with any other time of the year. Perhaps it is the scent of decay, but a soft kind of warm, glowing decay, telling stories of the gradual death of the summer grass, the leaves of the hardwoods. Subtle changes come into the sky, into the clouds. The light seems to hit them a different way. The birds seem enlivened, perhaps by those coooler nights. I've noticed my beautiful meadowlarks singing more, serenading me from the sage behind the house. This was particularly true when a grumbling and rare early morning thunderstorm woke me up early yesterday morning and made me run out to cover the last of the hay, which I had neglected to put the boards back over. While I was at the barn, the rain came down, and I went inside and listened to it patter pleasantly on the roof. Then, for a few minutes, the sun came back out, and I made my dash for the house.
After I came back in and the rain charged over the mountain in one very heavy, dark sheet that I could see cascading toward us like a ghost in a B movie, it began to soak the land, if only briefly. It was after the rain that the meadowlarks came out in droves, and I lay in bed and thought of my friend Stephanie, who so loved the meadowlarks. It was such a moment as this when I would have loved to call her and share, would have loved to hear the excitement in her voice. Like me, it was the simple things about life that brought joy to Stephanie and made her eyes sparkle and put a huge smile on her face, dimpling those cheeks. But since I can't call Stephanie anymore, I sat and remembered her and dreamed her near. My beautiful little wife, Debbie, and I lay warm under the covers breathing in the fresh, clean air and listening to those meadowlarks, and the day was as perfect as it could be. And somehow I knew Stephanie was out there in the sagebrush, or walking through the forest to the west, and she, too, was listening to those meadowlarks.
The lightning flashed, and the thunder cracked sharply, and then, like a stubborn child, it lingered and grumbled and rattled its way on into the distant mountains. Fall is on its way. Autumn, beginning with September, "The Hunting Moon." Or, in Cheyenne, the Moon of Drying Grass; Kiowa, Moon When the Leaves Fall Off; for Sioux, Moon When the Plums are Scarlet. So maybe the Indians had a much more poetic way to describe their "moons," or months. Our name, "September," means simply the ninth month. But I guess it's poetic enough, in its own way.
The important thing is fall is almost here, and although it signals a coming time of cold and dreary days, it is a glorious season that no one should miss being in the middle of, even if it means getting away from the TV and going for a walk in the mountains. Maybe we'll run into each other out there.
Vaya con Dios.
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