The Browning of Things

The browning of things has begun . . .

the leaves are moving in constant sway
to the winds – time, change, is in the air –
as east to west and back again, maples
and elms, oaks and birch, surrender their
color ecstasies to the browning season

the ground is littered with the detritus
of love – crunchy, fun, kicking-up-heels –
love – of life and cycles and repeatings
as east to west and back again, maples
and elms, oaks and birch, surrender their
life clinging to the browning season

inside onions in butter, hamburger in oil
chicken with a bit of garlic, surge and
simmer and get that good skillet brown
as east to west and back again, maples
and elms, oaks and birch, surrender their
claim to tourist fame to the browning season

as outside fawns turn without effort from
golden butter (the color we name for them)
to brown laced with a bit of black up the spine
the better to hide, to blend, the better camouflage
as east to west and back again, maples
and elms, oaks and birch, surrender their
lives in a final bid at the hoped-for resurrection
of things, come spring, the thing hoped for
come browning season

I Had Me a Bowl of Color

low-hanging branches of gold

dance in the wind waving their

invitation to come out and play

browning leaves carpet the

still-green grass with the

crunch of that perfect first bite

invited, enticed, seduced, I step

out into the magic of it all – this

fall – and I had me a bowl of

color for breakfast today

Applebutter Day in the Mountains

One large copper kettle

+

Two large stainless kettles

+

Hundreds of large jars of apple sauce

+

Cinnamon – lots of cinnamon

+

Three motors formerly used to run turkey-house curtains

+

Three thing-a-ma-jigs with rubber fan belts

+

One permanent lean-to built shed-style with farm leftovers

+

Three farmers

+

One great neighbor

+

Lots of church women

+

Countless bottles & funnels and labels

+

One raconteur with an anit-Obama bumper sticker in his pocket

=

McKendree Methodist Church apple butter

Rosalee ran Angelika and me up to McKendree this morning to check out the applebutter making operation – one of McKendree’s big fundraising projects for the year.

The smells – heavenly.  The atmosphere – pure country.  The end result – tasty.

In some ways I miss the old-school style – with the long wooden paddles for stirring and pennies thrown in the copper pots to prevent sticking.  But I’m not the one doing the stirring.

And you have to admire the common-sense ingenuity that made from spare parts and willing hands three automatic stirring machines.

The smell of applebutter in the making on a cool fall day, sun shining off the fall leaves, fills the air with magic, and that’s a recipe worth following.

An Ungrateful Scoffing of Rain

It’s unseemly to be ungrateful.

There’s lots worse places weather wise on this planet.

***

yesterday was one of those days 

that catapults me in alternating hate and hope – 

hate of the heat and humidity, 

hope when the rain comes of a cleansing, 

only to look at the sky with a practiced eye 

declaring to no one but myself, 

yeah, you won’t last long – 

and be right, more’s the pity.

***

Summer segues to fall, autumn

this first day of the officialdom

of change – as if the leaves falling

stop to notice when it’s time –

or not – as if rain is more forthcoming

when summer segues to fall –

as if the false promise becomes more

real in the clean air of the autumnal promise

and so again the rain comes

and still, and yet,

yeah, you won’t last long –

and I am still right.

To Fall

wow

to fall
and falling things
leaves wafting
odors mixing
earth with dead things
a last blast of life
before the tides of winter
overwhelm
with that white blanket
of quiet and disguise

fall
the perfect high dive
from the heights of summer
where the moment is
held captive to eternity
and all its blaze

wow


________________
*An exercise in reflecting on the wow of the seasons, inspired by Anne Lamott’s lovely book Help, Thanks, Wow.  

Wowowowowowowowow

Driving home yesterday on US Rt. 250 (the Parkersburg-Staunton Turnpike), running along the ridge of Cheat Mountain, I entered the tunnel of trees speckled with sunshine and overflowing with the colors of fall.

Knowing this drive so well, I anticipated the turn that would bring me into the magic.  Even so, it was such a splendid perfection that all I could do was keep saying “wow” – a mantra of wonder at these mountains, this day, this gift that makes a spirit sing with the sheer joy of being alive.

wowowowowowowowowow

Apple is the Smell of Fall

I made two apple pies the other night.  The only reason – a friend gave me some apples.  These were not the grocery store exemplars – shiny, perfectly shaped, waxy skinned, Eve-inviting – no, these are the fallen-from-the-trees today apples . . . with insect-chewed breaks in the skin and bruises from the fall and the odd worm hole here and there – green with just a hint of red coming on.  These are the evidences of God’s bounty – food that literally falls from the trees with no effort or thought from its human and other-crittered consumers and probably not all that much thought or effort on the part of the trees themselves.

When it’s fall, apples, you see, just happen.

I wonder why autumn is variously referred to as fall and then think on the apples letting go of their tree

purchase – free fall sounding throughout the woods this time of year –

I don’t know if that’s the answer, the reason, but it delights me, this idea that we call autumn ‘fall’ because the harvest is falling into our hands.

Bidden or unbidden, Carl Jung wrote, God is present.

And so are the apples.


_________________________
Why do we in the western hemisphere call this season ‘fall’?  One theory is because leaves ‘fall’ from the tree (at least in the US, we are that literal).  Another opines that this is the season when the sun ‘falls’ below the equator.  The Brits will love this one: supposedly the Americans (translate: from the US) cannot spell ‘autumn’, so opted for the easier ‘fall’ instead.  Another points out that ‘faellen’ (Old English for ‘the fall of the leaf’) is the origin, bringing us full circle, much like the seasons themselves.  

In Heaven It Is Always Autumn

God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; in Paradise, the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is always autumn, his mercies are ever in their maturity.  –John Donne

In Heaven It Is Always Autumn, by Elizabeth Spires

In heaven it is always autumn. The leaves are always near

to falling there but never fall, and pairs of souls out walking

heaven's paths no longer feel the weight of years upon them.

Safe in heaven's calm, they take each other's arm,

the light shining through them, all joy and terror gone.

But we are far from heaven here, in a garden ragged and unkept

as Eden would be with the walls knocked down,

    the paths littered

with the unswept leaves of many years, bright keepsakes

for children of the Fall. The light is gold, the sun pulling

the long shadow soul out of each thing, disclosing an outcome.

The last roses of the year nod their frail heads,

like listeners listening to all that's said, to ask,

What brought us here? What seed? What rain? What light?

What forced us upward through dark earth? What made us bloom?

What wind shall take us soon, sweeping the garden bare?

Their voiceless voices hang there, as ours might,

if we were roses, too. Their beds are blanketed with leaves,

tended by an absent gardener whose life is elsewhere.

It is the last of many last days. Is it enough?

To rest in this moment? To turn our faces to the sun?

To watch the lineaments of a world passing?

To feel the metal of a black iron chair, cool and eternal,

press against our skin? To apprehend a chill as clouds

pass overhead, turning us to shivering shade and shadow?

And then to be restored, small miracle, the sun

    shining brightly

as before? We go on, you leading the way, a figure

leaning on a cane that leaves its mark on the earth.

My friend, you have led me farther than I have ever been.

To a garden in autumn. To a heaven of impermanence

where the final falling off is slow, a slow and radiant happening.

The light is gold. And while we're here, I think it must

    be heaven.

In heaven it is always autumn

Today my friend Walt shared Elizabeth Spire’s poem taken from a line in a sermon by John Donne.

His sermon and her poem, both beautiful each in their own way, stir that thing of Fall in me – the thing so many find in Spring – the life-stirring thing – that makes each smell more pungent, each feeling more poignant.

My spring cleaning has always happened, when at all, in the Fall.

My joy has always come not at the flower’s first bud, but at the leave’s last burst.

It is the fullness of what has been more than the promise of what might yet be that captivates me.

Thus does the ugly-spoken word always jar the more in Fall – not here, not now – wait til Winter or better still, Spring, for such things.  They must not be spoken here.

With the greed of the small child, I am jealous of each Fall – for every bend, every curve in the road, brings a new panoply of color and movement and sound – each more spectacular than the last if only for its first viewing by my esurient eyes.

Were I a dog, it would be dropped golden leaves and not a stick that would jut ridiculously from my mouth.  Were I a cat, it would be crunchy curled leaves and not the mouse, played and replayed between my claws.

I am but a woman and so it is my eyes, my nose and my feet that feast.  As it should be.

For the sheer bravery of Fall, as each thing dies sure it will be resurrected, moves my eyes to tears, my nose to lift seeking into the air and my feet to dancing.

Fall again.

That Satisfying Sound

I don’t know why

the sound
of the leaves
grown dead
on the ground
in the fall
makes a most
satisfying sound
underfoot

Left to choose
the cleared yard
or the leaf strewn
walk
I always go
straight for the
leaves

Crunch
Snap-crackle-pop
all-at-once
crumble, rumble
mumblin

there is something
so simply right
about this sound
of the earth
returning to itself
it makes my feet
happy and my ears
rejoice

Celebrating October

October has begun and I rejoice, for this month, my son will celebrate another birthday . . . animals will be blessed on the grounds of the church I pastor . . . World Communion Sunday will be celebrated by congregations all over our planet . . . leaves will deepen their fall colors into glorious blasts of yellow and orange and a deep purple-maroon color I have no name for . . . the cool fall air will invigorate us all here in the mountains for a last blast of frenetic activity before winter comes . . . and I will stand outside and breathe in until my lungs can’t hold anymore and then I shall breathe in some more, seeking to hold to the cool clean beauty of an autumn day . . . and I will be blessed.

If You Would Know the Wind

If you would know 

the wind and its 

courses through

space and time,

watch the leaves

in fall as they 

dance to a beat

none save they

can hear, move in

time with a conductor’s

wand none save they

can see