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

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


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

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.


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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.