The Taste of Iron

The leaves are down now. There are a few hickories and oaks hanging on to theirs, but for the most part, the ground, the drive, the deck are all covered with crunchy drifts of brown leaves. I discovered this year, that the trees take turns in dropping. Each day after the great 'let go' starts, the deck and courtyard would be powdered over with a different type of leaf. The beech were first and the oaks last. There is even one variety of oak that stubbornly holds on to it's crop until the spring leaf buds sprout. Somewhere in the Mother Nature Manual, there's a reason for that to happen. Amazing.

Now the horizon is more visible at dusk. There is a clear view of that lovely blue band that tops the trees when the sun drops below their uppermost branches. I guess that helped give the Blue Ridge Mountains there name. It is beautiful. The lake water is bathed in mauve and lavender tones and takes on a mirror glaze.

Fall is ending. Already the temperatures are dropping and late afternoon has a hardness to it that will only intensify with the arrival of winter. The wind has a different sound also. A higher, clearer stream to it's movement through the trees. Everywhere the woods are quieter.

After all the riot of color in the Fall leaves, there is a feeling of melancholy. It's sad to see the bare shapes of the trees. Life will be harder now for everyone in the woods. It seems as if this time reflects all of our concerns about the economy.

Squirrels and deer and racoons don't think about the job index or the Dow Jones Average. But we, like them, are thinking ahead to making it through winter. A time that used to be described as "the taste of iron". Nature's great cycles shift and move on. We would do well to remember that. Life is essentially about change.

The full moon was last week. Coming in over the past two nights I have been deeply moved by watching its' lush fullness slowly wane. I find it even more beautiful. Seeing it's perfect circle melting down by degrees on one side is oddly comforting. Nothing in this life is perfect. Everything is born,grows and swells into life and then at some ineffable moment begins to decline and move towards completion. Winter is the time of rest and renewal. Even the moon rests it's beautiful face one night a month. So must we. As we move through the dark days of cold and rest and grapple with the realities of the cycle of our own lives and economy, it's good to realize that this can also be a time of renewal for all of us.

"It was when the trees were leafless,

first in November, and their

blackness became apparent, that we
first knew the eccentric to be the

base of design."

Wallace Stevens