Year of the Fallen Leaves

The green lawn shimmers golden yellow orange red with a blanket of magnificent fallen leaves under the gray, almost wintery sky. I always look forward to this time of year to soak up the gorgeous colors of what recently was very alive, vibrant green and clustered together on trees, providing shade, shelter and nutrition for all kinds of creatures. At this time of year, they wear down brilliantly, their lives ending with a blow-out of hues that artists and photographers strive to catch.

Glory in death.

This year several glorious leaves fell from my life. Some fell earlier than others, but they all blazed brilliantly as they finished their purpose and the time came to go away. First my Aunt Betty Hunt, then long time family friend Thelma Johnson, then my mother Mary Jo Hunt Gregoire and then my cousin Danny Gregoire.

They left people behind, yearning to see them again. Their departure allows us to follow suit—serve our purpose, finish in spectacular ways, blanket other lives with our own blazing ends. The time of death is a wonderful time to do our absolute very best, to leave behind burning images of good for those who are just beginning and for those who are still strong and green.

Today, stepping carefully among the tree’s fallen leaves, tears finally flow down my face. Finally, I mourn…and it’s okay.

October 8, 2016…the morning I found the way to mourn.

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Leaf Fall

drapes the world

floods streets

blinds

orange red yellow browns

tornadoes

swirls

raining

mesmerizes

Rejection=Rebuffed, Snubbed, Denied

After an afternoon walk in perfect pre-Thanksgiving weather, perfect sky, wispy cloud pieces, bright, cheery, I sat on the porch swing to catch my breath and saw:

On the electric wire across the highway, perched a long-beaked bird, looking around the world, being the size of a robin. A small sparrow flitted up and landed next to Long-Beak. Long-Beak glanced over, saw the sparrow, viewed him as an intruder, rude, crude, socially unacceptable, and flew up and up then glided over and over to the right down and down onto the other end of that electric wire, leaving the sparrow sitting goofily by himself. The sparrow fluffed his feathers, shook, then hopped over the pole on its left to the wire on the other side, hidden by all the wire coiling and knots. Then Long-Beak flew away.

Humans aren’t the only creatures that get rejected when the wing of friendship reaches out.

The Pull of the Great Reflector

We laugh as we wolf-howl at the Super Moon, the Hunter’s Moon

hovering over the dark night in the west, just as dawn begins her

approach in the east. Low in the sky, immense, delicately veiled by a

thin layer of Patricia’s clouds. We howl again in fun, but stop to

marvel while the moon radiates sunlight downward as a shimmering

partial pie wedge, sparkling over dark, soft clouds rising up to

cover the great reflector. Within a short period of five minutes, as we

drive north, the pie wedge shrinks up, up, and then thin, dark lines of

encroaching clouds cross over the vast silvery disk, imitating Saturn.

Silently, gradually, just before the five minutes slip away, the silvery

glowing disk shrinks into a pastel patch of pink fuzzy light, the

size of a heavenly postage stamp, then poof…it is gone behind our future.

 

(Later, as I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting for the Husband’s checkup, I was forced to listen to the news, and learned that this particular Super Moon caused one of the largest high tides in the history of the east coast. Charleston, South Carolina is flooded again, along with other areas on the coast, down through Florida, because of the Hunter’s Moon-tide, along with complications from Patricia, a hurricane twice as enormous as her older sister Katrina)

A Drive through the Fall

“Look! Burning embers over there with a

Blazing fire next to it! Oh! And, look!

Glowing lemon yellows and greens! And

There! Purples and dark greens and yellow

Greens and, oh! Look! More burning embers!

It’s so byoot-ti-full!” And tears well up in her eyes,

He just gazes around, enjoying the fall quietly.