The clock on my computer reads 6 AM, and there's no sign of light through the window. The first day of autumn was a month ago, and the leaves of the trees I cannot see in the opaqueness of pre-dawn have shifted to brilliant russet and orange and yellow.
Fall breaks my heart, the way it wrings out the greatest beauty of the leaves before they die and blow away in spicy, earthy drifts. The rustle of leaf piles, the days and nights of rain from delicate sprinkles to sibilant showers to pounding gullywashers speak the truth of autumn, that it's all about the last hurrah before the earth sleeps through the winter.
Flocks of starlings, like sooty leaves tumbled in a wind, wheel across the sky in everchanging patterns -- billows grown big, then small; gathering for their migration south. The unprepossessing slate-colored juncos in their grey and white move in and outnumber the year-round drab sparrows. The cardinals stay through the winter, flashing red against the snow; seeing one seems like a promise that summer will come.
It is time to tuck away my summer fancies for those things that stay, that last through the winter. I will invite those friends to my hearth to drink hot chocolate and tell stories; I will welcome them as my own.
I love it!!!!! The close of the year can evoke sadness. For myself I love this time of year. Bidding Farwell to summer and the endless heat....that makes me happy. Sweater, woodsmoke in the night air, the colors of fall splattered on the trees. This is Lanetta.
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