face on the blue boulder

face on the blue boulder

overlooking the dry creek,

eyes closed, smiling

Walking the path along Pilgrim Creek, dry as the dead leaves lining its bed, I pass the blue boulder overlooking the creek. As always, I stop to marvel at its presence. It looks like the serene face of a meditating Buddha wrapped in a shawl of moss. From what far region did this erratic hunk of granite hail? When did it hitch a ride on a glacier to this spot on the steep side of a little stream feeding into the creek? How many eons has it been lying there, witnessing the cycle of seasons? The blue Buddha holds enigmatic memories behind closed eyelids. But its small smile seems to say, why worry your head over such questions? Relax, be still, enjoy!

Mama hated Fall

Leaving

Mama hated Fall—

said it made her melancholy,

all the trees losing their leaves,

dying.

She was staring half-blind

out the window of the cubicle

she shared with an empty bed

on the other side of the curtain

where her last roommate

muttered and moaned,

refused to eat,

and stopped breathing—

at the very moment the first blood

red leaf on the sugar maple

fell in a fluttering spiral

onto the cropped grass.

From mama’s worn recliner

she couldn’t see the scarlet

oak still holding on

to every one of its stiff spiky leaves

until the first day of spring

when the old tree at last

dropped its tough unyielding

regrets.

She couldn’t see because

she chose to close her eyes

on the Ides of March and missed

the final end of Fall.

Her still-dark curly hair arrayed like

a crown of oak leaves,

and the shape of her slack mouth,

an opening bud.

Indian Summer

Indian Summer --

wild plum leaves russet beneath 

a cottonball sky

Indian Summer, the sunny, colorful hiatus between Summer green and Winter gray. Puffball altocumulus clouds punctuate an intensely blue sky, contrasting with the vivid fall foliage. Even the poison ivy looks gorgeous decked out in brilliant burgundy, copper and gold.

The secret of this magic leaf transformation is that the leaves don't actually "turn" red or orange or yellow, they just lose their green, like this shagbark hickory leaf, which is gradually going from green to yellow.

These oak leaves have red polish on their "finger nails."

Several pigment colors are in the leaves all along: green chlorophyll, red anthocyanin and yellow caratenoid. In summer the leaves are busy putting light together with water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and glucose. Photosynthesis takes place with the help of chlorophyll, and the predominance of this green pigment hides the red and yellow. This sumac leaf is experiencing chlorophyll withdrawal.

When the days get shorter, there's not enough light for photosynthesis, so plants stop taking up water and eating light and prepare to live through the winter on stored sugar. As the green chlorophyll fades from the leaves, the underlying pigments appear. When there's more anthocyanin, the leaves appears red, like these compound staghorn sumac leaves.

More caratenoid, and the leaf appears yellow, as seen in this compound shagbark hickory leaf.

A mixture of anthocyanin and caratenoid results in orange, as shown in this compound buckeye leaf. 

Anthocyanins require light, so the sunnier the days, the brighter the red foliage. It's also interesting to notice that trees, like this maple, often turn red from the top down, since the leaves at the top receive more sunlight.

All this fanfare of brilliant color is the last hurrah of the leaves. Deciduous plants prepare for the little death of winter by shedding their leaves. They do this by shutting off the water supply so that the leaf stem dries up, gradually loses its grip and falls. In a light breeze the trees appear to be "raining" red, orange or yellow leaves.

When our heart stops ticking and the body loses its grip, wouldn't it be lovely if we went out in a shout of glorious colors?

frost whitens the grass

frost whitens the grass,

 fog veils the golden bean field,

mist wisps rise from the pond

On the first morning of autumn, grass lawns glimmer white with a coating of frost, a thin layer of fog hovers just above the golden soybean fields and tendrils of mist rise from the farm ponds. Overnight the temperature dropped to near freezing, 37 F/2.7 C. Fortunately,  when we let the cats in, we felt how cold the evening air was and brought the jade plant inside to its winter home on the sun porch. 

          I have not seen our hummingbirds at the sugar water feeder for several days, so I assume they've begun their incredible migration south, though last year one hung around until it was really quite cold. 

          Last night we debated about whether to start a fire in the wood stove. But the house, with its thick clay/straw walls and limestone floors, held the heat gathered from the sun porch and stayed a comfortable 60 F/15.5 C. However, I did put the wool comforter on the bed. 

          I can't get enough of this beautiful season of chilly nights and crisp, sunny days, going for long rambles in the woods, reveling in the contrast of red on green leaves, the saturated orange sunsets and the pink sunrises.

as nights grow colder

as nights grow colder,

a butterfly with tattered wings

basks in warm sunshine

A tattered, yellowed page falls out of a folder on my desk, unfolding on the floor to a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away." 

          The warm but shorter days are silently carrying away the gifts of summer. Leaves cascade in torrents from the trees. Tall prairie grasses turn copper, casting their seeds to the wind. Squirrels busily attempt to bury hickory nuts and acorns in the rock-hard ground. Fuzzy black and brown caterpillars scurry as fast as their many legs can carry them in search of a protected place to curl up for the winter. Honey bees forage on wild white and purple asters for the last drops of nectar. Hummingbirds and many others have migrated south, while the ones overwintering, like the Goldfinch, have molted from sunflower yellow to dull olive. Monarch butterflies and many others have also migrated south, while other butterflies and moths are already holed up in hollows or cracks in the bark of trees. 

          I follow a butterfly with tattered swallowtail wings around the yard, a straggler, late to either migrate or hibernate. It flutters from brown leaf to brown leaf until it lands on one yellow leaf, where it spreads its wings, soaking up the warmth from the afternoon sun. I squat down among the crisp, aromatic leaves, spread my bare arms and turn my face to the sun.

three girls with balloons

three girls with balloons

leaping in the autumn leaves

at Chautauqua Park

A hot autumn Sunday at Chautauqua Park, bustling with falling leaves, black walnuts in their round, aromatic green husks, people picnicking, riding bikes, jogging, walking dogs, playing Frisbee, and just playing around. Three girls -- a redhead, a blonde and a brunette -- each with three helium balloons -- pink, blue and green, laugh as they playfully leap around in the dry leaves. When their balloons get tangled together, they stop to patiently untangle the ribbons. For them, it's just another kind of play.

as the green withdraws

as the green withdraws

from the leaves, it leaves behind

crimson, russet, rose

          Glorious Indian Summer days. The continuous dry heat seems to be baking the green right out of the leaves, turning them into all the opposite hues. Some autumns in the Midwest, wind and rain blast the leaves down in one blow, leaving a carpet of copper and gold. But this year the maples, elms and oaks, the viburnum, blueberries and sumac, Virginia creepers, wild asparagus and poison ivy are putting on a vibrant, long-running show. 
          At the time of the great transition, some Tibetan masters of Dzogchen are able to release the elements of the physical body into a rainbow body made of the five pure lights. I would like to go out this way, nothing left but colors shimmering in the air. Yet the deciduous trees, bushes and woody plants do this every fall, when the leaves, in their dance of death, turn into a blaze of glory.