Posts Tagged ‘nature’

Ice. Death. Winter.

If autumn is my favorite season, with its luminescent leaves, portly pumpkins, and abundant acorns, it is tainted by the knowledge that winter is coming next.  Try as I might, I can never quite forgive autumn for failing to transform magically into spring as soon as it realizes its days are numbered.

In autumn, the sun is crystal clear, clean, adding a bright glow to everything it touches.  In winter, the sun is grey.  Not “g-r-a-y,” the predominant American spelling, but a full-fledged Wuthering Heights-quality GREY.  “Wuthering” is a fine word for winter, by the way… go look it up.

I hate the grey sun. (more…)

Memory seed.

My parents’ woods.  Shade, creek, flowers, vines, fences.  These have always been there in my memories.  In the right season, we would go and look for the pink lady’s slipper orchid; at other times, we would simply walk for the sake of walking.  Fifty acres, mostly wooded, spread out beneath our feet, filled with jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, honeysuckle, and a wealth of other wildflowers.

On one occasion, I remember a man going with us who did not normally go.  I think he was my uncle.  I know that I was too young to know why he was there, since he did not live with us.

The walk was… how long?  I’m not sure, because I’ve forgotten most of it.  The only fragment of that day that has survived was near the end of the hike.  We were walking uphill, approaching the back of my father’s barn.  My uncle was in front of me.  He and my father paused for a moment to talk, and as I squinted up at them against the patches of sun falling through the leaves, my uncle bent and scooped something from the ground.  He turned and extended his hand to me, smiling.  I took what he held and looked down at it, puzzled. (more…)