At the end of October, wind and rain shook the trees loose, and now the ground is covered in yellow, red, and orange leaves.
It was sad and beautiful to watch.
When Autumn* begins, this is how I feel. The light is gorgeous, truly mesmerizing. I can’t place the day when it shifted this year…most likely late September, early October, but the light softened. The air cooled, and I felt melancholy and nostalgic. As my neighbor and I sipped tea, looking into the back woods from her garden, she said that Autumn light was her favorite.
It is beautiful. But as Everett Reuss has written in his travel journals, nature sometimes offers beauty so hypnotizing it hurts. It’s as if this season is saying, “Here. Take a good long look. Soak up these hot colors as much as you can. Get them in, and keep them behind your eyes, because there are some months of grays and browns coming, and you’re going to need this memory for your sanity.”
Maybe this is just what I hear Autumn saying. I am partial to the restless light of Spring and the energetic light of Summer. I like the wake up feeling of these seasons.
Still, Autumn light is exquisite, dreamy, sleepy, and perfect for writing poetry. Her colors are gifts. Therefore, with this triptych of Benjamin’s photos, I honor this sad and beautiful.
*Yes, I capitalize the seasons. I love the German grammar rule of capitalizing all nouns, and I choose to selectively highlight my favorite nouns.
