autumn

Steam rising underneath a canopy of whispering, changing aspens; starlight in the clear, dark night, and wondrous beauty in every direction. If only all could feel this way, to be so captured and enthralled with autumn.

And every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding

I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.

Dorcas wasn't a fast walker. It was difficult for me to keep behind her. I tried to let others, joggers, and bicyclists, come between us. I followed her past a field where girls were playing soccer, and into the woods bordering Catamount Creek. The smell of pine needles underfoot was sharp, pungent. I seemed to know that I would always associate that smell with this afternoon, and with Dorcas.

The last dead leaves of fall crackled underfoot, winter-crisp.

But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North")

At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.

...the air has that bracing autumnal bite so that all you want to do is bob for apples or hang a witch or something.

Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods.

The goldenrod is yellow,The corn is turning brown...The trees in apple orchardsWith fruit are bending down.

October proved a riot a riot to the senses and climaxed those giddy last weeks before Halloween.

Autumn...the year's last, loveliest s

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orc

I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.

Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an untimely end.