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Yellow
and Ripe with Autumn
by Michael
Hofferber. Copyright ©
1996. All rights reserved.
Our long, dry summer is drawing to a close. Weeks of clear skies gave way last night to a steady rain. We haven't had a soaking like this since June, or May. There will be more warm days this year, without doubt, but November is already in sight, and December too. I see autumn in the meadows and pastures, where ryegrasses and wild wheat have reached maturity, their tops all yellow and bent over with the burden of seed. The goldenrod is blooming now, taking the place of monkey flowers and penstemon. In our garden, a second crop of carrots are showing their orange roots above the dark earth. We've seen the last of the raspberries for this year, I'm afraid, but the snow peas are still producing. Yesterday I dug up an armload of potatoes.
Such was the sage advice of Henry David Thoreau. One hundred sixty years later I find common ground in the truth he tilled. It is not just the crops in the field we gather this time of year, but those in our souls as well. People talk about the autumn and winter years of life as if spring were but a distant memory. This belies the flush of hope that surges through the oldest veins when crocuses first blossom. And it negates the sense of completeness even the youngest farmer feels at harvest time. Each year's cycle is a condensed version of a lifespan. One year lived fully can survive eternity. And so I try to remain awake to the season, whatever moon it's in. At noonday I drink deeply from the winy scent of fermenting fallen apples and stand stock still at sunset facing west, taking in the red-orange afterglow.
Come winter I will hold up this apple harvested from my tree and see the first green buds of April, smell the sweet fragrance of June, and feel the muscles in my shoulders stretching for it on some outlying branch. |
Rural Delivery Commentaries and advice on rural living by Michael Hofferber Visit the Rural Delivery Blog  
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