Thoughts of fall, the colors melting as falling leaves spread the residue of change across the landscape.
Shrouded in a fine myopic mist, the land lays waste to a slow death.
Wanting to hold on to precious life, the false hope of the future lasts until time reaches out and quietly asks it to return to the earth.
Since school started back up on August 30th, I haven’t had as much time to go hiking. It’s always a let down, especially since I could go hiking anytime and anywhere I wanted to during the summer months. Although I do ride a stationary bike on the days that I don’t get out, it isn’t quite the same! So, we had today off and I decided to go to…..Anthony’s Nose of course! It is still very early in the fall season so only small spots were beginning to change.
Fall starting to make an appearance.
Bear Mt. as seen from the Nose. As you can see, although some of the more Autumn colors are evident but not widespread.
As the AT turns off onto a woods road, it runs parallel to Camp Smith, a US Army reserve training center. Here are two signs that kept appearing on that particular section of the trail. The “Danger” sign faces the military reservation and the orange “property of” sign is on the other side of the tree facing the trail.
As I have noted before, hiking to Anthony’s Nose is always special, no matter how many times you take to the trail to get to the top. The temperature today was in the low 60’s with no humidity and cloudy skies. It was perfect!!!
Don’t worry, when the Autumn colors are more crisp I’ll get back up there and get some outstanding photos!
Peace.
A Tanka:
The hiker walks, boots
crunching the autumn leaves that
have fallen, making
each step an enchanted and
blissful journey towards peace.
The last leaf…desperately hanging on.
Swaying, stretching and living, wanting to hold on, if only for a another brief and fading moment.
Those precious seconds, truly a speck in time, sees former lush green magnificence giving way to a kaleidoscope of colors, shifting, swirling, changing , all trying to avoid the inevitable.
Shades of red, brown, yellow and burnt orange, taken from the deep cool breaths of Autumn’s womb, force the reluctant loner to accept the inevitability of pending stark, speckled death coupled with a sickly sweet and painfully slow decay.
For weeks the leaf hangs on.
The return to the earth beckoning, its grip, once tight and life affirming, loosens.
As it breaks away, floating slowly, gently and with purpose, the memories of soaring heights and warm breezes permeate its existence.
The leaf continues its descent and the once vivid memories begin to fade. Sadness surrounds the leaf as it surrenders itself to the cool, damp ground.
The last leaf is finally home.
I thought it was over, I thought I was free
The cool Autumn nights, the stars I would see.
September arrived and to my dismay,
Summers fury is back, to bake me like clay.
How long will it last, this unwelcome heat,
The sun beating down, frying eggs on the street.
Although I complain, I know it won’t last,
As quick as it came, more quickly to pass.
I don’t ask for much, just to be cool,
Why is it here? Just to be cruel?
Autumn came, with wind and gold.
-Henry David Thoreau
Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?
-Vernon Duke
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
-George Eliot
We talk about the disappearance of long warm days that have been saturated by the sun as the “death”of summer.
But summer must take leave, like wisps of smoke floating gently from a fading fire.
Lush green slowly turns into an umbrella of bright reds, oranges and yellows that breathe new life into a now chilled existence.
Natures chaos, its origins unknown, comes sweeping down and transforms the woods, separating the new brilliance from its lifeblood.
As the trees sway and moan in protest of a slow eventual death, the leaves fall with the rhythm of lightly falling snow, accumulating on the soft earth only to decay as the sun’s light continues its downward spiral.
With brutal awareness, the passage of time will soon bring beloved darkness and the promise of the next season.
The beautiful and precious cycle forges ahead.
Summers grip fading
Swirling winds help cool the night
Winters wrath to come
“The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.”
― Henry Beston
Leaves, lives, loves changing
Dark days, darker nights await
Autumns light prevails
The Zen Hiker 