Autumn Fades
Every year it comes. Summer collapses into autumn. Autumn hangs on for a while but loses its grip as the days become shorter and nights become colder.
I cling to the afternoon sun. Don’t set so soon. Please keep me warm for a few more days. Please shine through those cold, menacing clouds that drive you from sight. I know that frost is about to come and with it the death of those few remaining blooms. If I leave the hoses out, they will freeze. If I don’t take the patio furniture in it will suffer from cold, rain and abandonment. I look on my porch swing, the swing I love , which so many times rocks me as I soak in the setting sun, the sun which reflects back on my eyes from that beautiful green tree line. The beauty and warmth of nature’s Autmn is about to retreat.
Today I took in the hoses. I took some patio furniture into the garage. I took a spare bike into the basement. I sprayed my Iris patches with fungicide to ward of unwelcome creatures which trouble my Iris at summer’s end. I did this all in shorts and a tennis shirt pretending that it wasn’t 50 degrees and that I wasn’t really cold. It was still Autumn, wasn’t it?
Tonight I had to adjust the timer so that my family room light would come on at 6:00 PM. I look back and recall that on March 20, the longest day of the year, I set it to 8:30. What joy. Now this simple act, setting it to 6:00 PM, pains me because soon the shortest day of the year will come and I will be forced to admit that Winter is upon us.
Soon I will dismantle my porch swing and take it to the basement. I will delay this as long as possible because this is the act that forces me to accept the fact that Winter is crowding out Autumn. Goodbye warmth, goodbye sun, goodbye green, goodbye the joy of welcoming a bright new golden day.
But take heart. Throughout life we witness cycles. Baseball season, football season, the school year, the elections, tax time, painting your house, kids growing up, the loss of loved ones, growing old, birth, death and the ever-increasing awareness of self. But through it all I take heart in the knowledge that Winter signals the advent of Spring.