I puttered around the kitchen yesterday, an early October morning, baking Ed’s favorite chocolate chip cookies and my hearty squash. Every now and then I glanced out the windows. I love the scenery of our backyard… the gardens, bushes and trees… all planted by us once upon a golden time. And the creek, fields and hills beyond, all formerly part of Ed’s family’s farm, now filled with cart paths and well-kept green grass circles that swallow up dimpled golf balls… with a few that manage to find their way into our yard by some awesome force behind them! But, instead of a summery sun, I glanced out to see a dreary day…
I know many of my friends say fall is their favorite season. And rightly so, I suppose – for the cooling temps are welcome relief from summer’s intense heat and humidity, and the typical brilliant leaf colors reflect different types of trees framed against the backdrop of a bright crisp azure blue sky with puffy clouds which all make for a gorgeous display of nature’s beauty. But this year, without a hard frost yet, our leaves are rather dull, devoid of those bright colors.
I do enjoy the aromas of baked spiced apple and pumpkin pies, the odor of wood smoke wafting on the air (at times Ed can able to tell just what wood is being burned), familiar barn smells carried by a gentle breeze down the valley with a hint of well-cured silage, along with enjoying colorful fall flower arrangements, and the countrified pumpkin and gourd displays with corn stalks and hay bales some folks set up by their front door.
But, truth be told, I find autumn to be the harbinger of a gray cold world with dying leaves that bequeath us with stark-naked tree limbs. Yet, when studied, those limbs have a distinctive roughened beauty all their own etched against the sky of any shade. And, though there are gray drizzly skies, and cold, damp days that chill to the bone… they do have a plus side with lots of delicious homemade baked goods, stews, soups and chili with cornbread!
I much prefer spring and its promised return of new life and summer’s golden rays. So, as this poem began to form several years ago, I tried to focus on the whispered secrets of fall – in its colorful beauty pointing to winter’s pristine white splendor, and the resurgence of life in the future that can only be hinted at now.
October Whispers
Linda A. Roorda
The lonely parade
of falling colors
a silent drizzle
and cocooning fog
consuming
dampening
turn thoughts inward
melancholy
bereaved
for the joy of summer
basking
in bright warmth
now shrouded
by hazy sheen
forcing hearts to gaze
ahead
and to leave
the past to fall
behind
etched in time
yet even now
renewed
in visions of white
and whispers soft
of secrets hidden
for the way it is
and soon shall become.
~~
Photo taken by author in 2019.
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