The birds told me before the sky or air that fall was here. Their songs changed. The leaves are probably the last sign that autumn is upon us, and yet they get the hallmark of the season’s change. Birds deserve a bit more credit.But the moon and the stars have been subtley changing, too, and that is what I love about fall. It meanders in and lingers as it expresses its many moods.
The leonids will come soon, and I anxiously watch the sky for their explosive, short-lived statements. But they move me so, and keep my eyes riveted high.
Fall to me is about passion and yearning, and it kindles like a chemical reaction deep within me. I felt it start almost a month ago and for me it will last until late November. Glorious time!
Colorado falls last about 3 weeks: vibrant, strong-willed until truncated by an unexpected snowfall. No such worries in Virginia, where the passion and yearning can twine and intertwine for months. They are both about savoring and longing, but at different speeds and perhaps in different directions.
I have never felt such a satisfying feeling as the passionate yearning autumn combusts in me. I want to bottle it, study it, imbibe it, inhale it, understand it, although it cannot be contained or defined. Ingestion is purely intellectual.
And it feeds my very soul, the core of who I am, the foundation upon which I stand. Here is a poem from 1981.
Autumn Change
The autumn change
Brings out the range
Of colors bright and bold
A dying flicker of shiny gold
Before the hue is dead
Out springs Indian red
A scarlet so serene
Overcome by olive green
When the molten colors turn over
The time is now October
Orange speckles to the ground
With traces of hickory brown
Colors so simple yet also strange
Reflect the mystery of the season’s change
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008
