A Deep River Year

October 15, 2014      

 

The huge pile of leaves in our front yard is a product of the great old maple that stands guard over the south side of the house.   The bright leaves have been swirling down for a few weeks now, a process accelerated by the weekend's wind and rain.   Actually, the pile is so big because my granddaughter and her friend spent a few hours raking it high enough so that they could do satisfactory dives and flips into it.    Wild giggling followed, then more raking, then more jumping.   Then I took a leap, too.

 

The great fall of leaves marks the loveliest of seasons in New England.   The first glimpse of autumn comes in August, when a flash of red appears in the roadside sumac or the woodbine climbing a stone wall.   Up north the change of colors begins in earnest in September, and where we are, near the mouth of the Connecticut River, the peak of foliage color may not come until the end of October.  We savor this, even though it is a change that leads to winter.   The scientific explanation is that as the days shorten and the light dwindles, the green chlorophyll in the leaves can't continue to feed the tree and eventually the tree stops producing it.   As chlorophyll disappears, we begin to see other pigments which hide during the green of the year. Orange and yellow and red make their show at last.

 

Sometimes we see this in people, too:   when darkness gathers and the hard seasons come, our colors may turn the brightest.   Often in those difficult times the human spirit shines with its greatest beauty.   Many years ago I spent an October afternoon with an old professor at his summer cabin high up on the bank of the Housatonic River.   He was a famous historian, a great author, at the twilight of his life.    It had turned cold, and the little man stood bundled up in a heavy coat, his small round glasses glinting in the failing sunlight.   The autumn wind tousled his mane of snow-white hair as leaves flew around us.  "Some people get  melancholy when autumn comes and everything dies down," he said looking at the multi-hued hills across the river.   Then he grinned as I'll always remember him:  "But what a way to go!"

 

Autumn Crown

 

I have come now to the autumn,

and I see that my hair

has turned gray with time.

Around me the October world

is making its way toward winter,

and on a thousand hills

there is one more surge of life

before the cold days arrive.

A jubilation of trees,

their roots deep in ancient soil,

seem to smile,

knowing that it is fine to stand

in the fading light

wearing an autumn crown.

I have earned my gray, these years,

but sometimes I think

that it would be a lovely thing

to walk through crisp afternoons

with hair of red and gold,

a crown of joy to shine

in the fading light.

 

--Timothy Haut, October 15, 2014