photos, poetry, pieces of a perfect fall day

I love fall - sweater weather perfect for a brisk walk, a good book and a blanket, a cup of tea or coffee with Ella Fitzgerald playing in the background. There is no other time of year when I find myself so reflective, as if nature were echoing the transformation and growth, the changes in my own life. I wonder what is next...who I will be next fall...what transformations will have taken place...Just a thought...and now a Sunday patchwork of photos and poetry for your viewing pleasure :) Enjoy!




DESIGNED TO PERFECTION by Marcia Schechinger

Of simplistic nature
this bright autumn day
coffee warming the chill of morning
trees tipped with pink hue,
I breathe

How can the grass have
such a glow
or the trees limbs bend and bow
each so original in design

The art of this world surrounds me
yet, have I ever seen that rose before
tapering the neighbors brick
or the black squirrel
curling beneath the brush
pump in belly
from todays abundance of food

How I have worried about
the flowing of life changes
and quickly passed the bent branch
with the darkened hollow
where once a nest was made

Why have I not heard the weeping willow
with its green dreadlocks
touching my window
How many times has it tapped
before I noticed its defined braids

I have swallowed life
without chewing
drank wine forgetting
the grapes that riped for me

Today I shall begin again
like the school child giggling
remembering every leaf on the tree
has a meaning, a purpose

God, the artist, designed
life to perfection
and I have spent my days
looking at it
from way too far away
to see the subtleties
of His design and plan

Today I am not the critic
I am the the observer
the child in awe

The Silence by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

For Steve

Fall is my favorite time of year. Many a more eloquent poet has pieced together beautifully the words to describe the essence of autumn. It is a thoughtful, "romantic" time of year as my friend Melanie Fox says. So I will not attempt to capture with words what my senses try to capture as each precious day of fall slips by; but I do want to share some of the thoughts that swirl through my head like leaves on Riverside Drive. Fall makes me think of my brother Steve - more than usual. This is for several reasons - his birthday is October 7th, he loves pumpkin pie, and he is extra busy in the fall with extra cows to milk, crops to harvest, and he likes the chilly weather. So this poem is for my brother - one of my very favorite people and a true blessing from God.

The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry

The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?