Autumn Colors

Having just spent a week-end at our lake place near Alexandria, Minnesota I was struck by the beauty of the colors that just popped into peak fall color. Why does after 60+ years of noticing fall colors I am still in awe of what nature delivers to us this time of year? Spectacular once again!

A couple of weeks ago I painting this impression of fall colors and I think the thoughts of Mary Oliver in her poem, “Fall Song” is where I want to leave this week’s thoughts.  Enjoy the landscape and soak in the color.

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere

its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply

in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island

of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering

in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds

and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure

painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing

to stay – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever

in these momentary pastures.

~ Mary Oliver ~