Autumn Approaches

There is something about this time of year that always makes me introspective. Everything I see or smell seems to trigger a memory. The low humidity brings a less diffuse light, and everything appears in crisper focus. Colours are brighter. Blues were never so blue.

And the familiar smells of an approaching autumn are so comforting. The occasional whif of a burning pile of leaves. Strong spices begin to take their place on menus: nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom. Pumpkins and squashes are again popular.

Of course, my favourite holidays come three in a row: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. In the middle lies my mother's birthday, another special time for a family day.

evensong

crimson leaves on wet black boughs
white clouds in blue skies writing
soil and sweat on furrowed brows
against short days are fighting

autumn’s sun is high o’erhead
and summer’s birds are fleeing
winter’s white finds flowers dead
whilst springtime’s babes are sleeping

all the streets are candlelit
the horse and buggy tended
jack-o-lanterns grinning sit
all wrongs by all-saint’s mended

fireflies, brief, dance for hours ere dawn

crickets sing till the moon has gone

(an original poem by Brian Nelson)

Winter Thoughts

Thinking again of winter, or, to be more precise, of snow. I am sure that I have said it before: there is no quiet more complete or all-enveloping than that of snow. To lie in a field knee-deep with snow is truly to be at peace. And I have found myself in need of such peace these past few weeks. No specific sense of stress, or tension, or dread. Just a vague desire to “get away”. Most people long to lie on a hot, sunny beach in some tropical latitude. For me, it’s the white pristine reaches of the northern world.

What a delightful poem I have recently found. It is "Blizzard", by Barbara Reiher-Meyers:

Gale warning hail warning
Sky sifts high drifts
Finding bright blinding white
Snowball snowfall
Moonscape snowscape
Frostbite dost bite
Rococo swirls hot cocoa curls
Icy glove spicy love
Huddle in cuddle in
Rock salt clocks halt

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It is 12:13, just past midnight. Today is my grandmother’s birthday. She is 84 years old. Many winters come and gone, and still she lives in Ohio. No snowbird, she.