I love this season more than the rest... and now it has begun

The seasons are shifting: the linden leaves are turning yellow, the burning bush is

shifting into crimson, and the temperature is 50 F. I love autumn in all its phases: from the first whisper of color in mid-August and the hint of golden rod and asters in the wetlands as September peeks around the corner to the full blown visual assault of earth tones in early October and the eerie grey emptiness of All Saints Day. It is my favorite time of the year. And now it has begun...

... we bought our first wee pumpkin at the fruit stand last Sunday. I can't yet imagine being masked as we tromp through corn field mazes and pick our weight in mature pumpkins in a month, but I'm down for it, for sure! So many of my kin are apprehensive as autumn arrives: winter is soon to follow with all of its dark gloom they say. Stanley Kuntiz captures their angst as well as any:

An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.

But I feel a numinous quality in the air, the thin places revealed and honored.

Must be my Celtic soul bubbling up from below. Of course, I feel melancholy. Who doesn't? That is part of the blessing, yes? The awareness of endings becoming beginnings, life embracing death, sorrow kissing hope, and ancestors long passed singing our favorite hymns one more time? It is a remarkable season sated by apple cider and extraordinary shadows. These are the days when I start to bake bread again. And prepare Shepherd's Pie. I dust off my Celtic tunes to let deep speak to deep even as my back aches from raking leaves. Once again, we can walk in the wetlands free from the scourge of deer ticks and gather more milkweed pods for Louie's butterfly garden. Better than most, Carl Sandberg gets it.

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Tomorrow, after Scottish Breakfast tea and toast, I will repair a few rotting stairs, finish painting faded door trim, and walk around taking note of the trees that line our yard. I need to know them better: what are they saying - and why? I love this season more than all the rest. And now it has begun...