October 27: Rising wind

Wind rising with dark--
the one tree with all its leaves
roars like a waterfall.

October 20: Bare branches, bare arms in the cold

Trees shivering, leaves lost,
colors fading underfoot--
I'm not ready.

October 13: Autumn day trip

A day of sparrows
in fields going to seed
leaves red and falling

October 12: Autumn Zen

Fall leaves prayer flags.

On the front porch Buddha

contemplates a pumpkin.

October 10: Color

Autumn leaves--

lost in thought, I drive for miles

without noticing.

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September 14: Moosehead

First maples show red

at the marsh's edge

where this morning a moose passed.

October 26: Nostalgia

One maple still glows
still holds all its shining leaves
and two crows.

October 24: Weather report

Waiting for wind to rise
and strip away all these colors.
He's gone again.

October 19: Sumac

Scarlet sumac leaves,
scarlet sumac berries.
A turkey scuttles past.

October 25: Witch-hazel

On a short lunch break walk through the woods along the river, we came upon a flowering witch-hazel tree. No, this is not some confused tree adversely affected by global climate change. This fall bloomer is right on schedule, its small, yellow-green flowers emerging from the tree's slender, bare branches almost magically, life sprouting from something seemingly dead (or at least dormant). The branches are also ornamented by what must be last year's dried seed pods, little cupped wings.

To come upon this tree in fall, blossoming when everything around it, even its own foliage, is fallen and dying--is perhaps the one, last saving grace of autumn. A hurricane is due next week that will take care of any bright and lingering leaves, and then it's the long, dark slide into winter...

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

There's no bravery
in these late-blooming flowers--
that's just what they do.

October 21: Chairlift ride

Rode the chairlift up Ragged Mountain this morning with my friend Janet so we could fully appreciate the fall foliage from on high, as it were. The Camden Snow Bowl is apparently the only ski area from which one has an ocean view. This time of year, when the surrounding forest is burnished gold and copper, the deep blue autumn bay shines in beautiful contrast.

View from just above the chairlift station, looking down Lookout

The highlight of the outing for me, besides the glowing landscape, was watching (and listening to) a pair of ravens circling the summit. Also, we unexpectedly came upon a little garter snake crossing a ski trail, undoubtedly on its way to a sunny ledge. But the real surprise was when we were back down the mountain, heading for the car. Behind one of the maintenance buildings I heard a singing phoebe. I think the warmth of this sunny day must have confused him into thinking it was spring.

Bald Mountain, as viewed from the Ragged Mountain chairlift

Phoebe's out-of-season song
makes the day feel warmer
than it really is.

October 17: Quarry

This morning I participated in a Land Trust outing at the Simonton Quarry Preserve in Rockport. This property is currently owned by the Nature Conservancy, but we've managed it for many years. Still, this was my first visit, in part because quarries give me the creeps. Those impenetrable black depths... given all the junk that gets left on the property in plain sight, who knows what might be down there in that water, or how deep? Today our findings were innocuous--beer bottles and a big TV face-down in cattails, dumped off the back wall of the first quarry.

Walking around the edges of the quarries was sometimes challenging, and I felt an irrational fear that I was going to trip on something I couldn't see, fall from atop one of the sheer cliff walls of this depthless crater, and end up in that cold, dark water. But that didn't stop me from scrambling up the rocks with the others to get a sense of these strange, man-made water bodies, which twisted back into the woods beyond our sight.

The quarries are a historic remnant of Rockport's past as a center for lime production. Limestone was quarried and then shipped by train to the big kilns on the waterfront. We found abutments of cut stone and old cement pads where machinery had once poised. Across the road from the quarries, flanking Goose River, several tailings piles cobbled the woods with randomly strewn, sharp-angled, loose rocks that were a challenge to walk over.

Amid the awkward human landscape, spots of wild beauty: bright green foliose lichen growing like an arboreal lettuce patch on some tree trunks, twisted old apple trees, little ruby-crowned kinglet acrobatically exploring a birch tree, great blue heron flying down river. Climbing atop the highest tailings pile afforded a great view of nearby farm fields and fall-tinged trees along the river. And the others in the group spotted a fish in one of the quarries, which I was intrigued by. How did it get there? Were there others, or was it alone in that vast, carved stone bucket of black water?

Yellow leaves floating
on water the deep black
of dilated pupils.

October 16: Last light

At day's end the sun finally appeared long enough to cast its golden, dying light onto the west-facing slope of Mount Battie. Scraps of blue sky appeared, orange leaves began to shine. And a cardinal chipped and chipped from somewhere out of sight, shy bird, no doubt pecking at bird seed on the ground below the bird feeders.

Cardinal's chip intensifies
as the day's last glow
fades from the mountainside.

October 14: Lost in a book

Spent a good part of this rainy day reading a novel, a murder mystery by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, one of my favorites. Without giving anything away, I can say it's one of the more devastating books that I've read recently. So it was with some relief that when I finished this tragic book, set in the darker corners of chilly Oslo, the view out the window somewhat eased my mind: maple leaves edged with orange, back lawn a mosaic of colorful leaves across which a fat squirrel carries an acorn, and the river smoothly flowing past.

Hunter's orange leaves
offset the bleakness
of rain-soaked trunks.

October 9: Chrysanthemum

Some of the neighborhood maple trees suffer from a blight that leaves black spots all over the leaves--which unfortunately makes them a lot less attractive this time of year when they're falling all over the lawn. One fell atop a pot of chrysanthemums in my front yard, and I was struck by how much this one poor leaf marred the simple beauty of the flowers.

Blight-mottled leaf
hides the chrysanthemum:
censorship.

October 7: Falling leaves

A gust of wind has shaken loose a tree-full of yellow leaves, now slowly swirling down in a mesmerizing flurry over the backyard. It's as if we were in a giant autumn snow globe, but with leaves instead of snow flakes.

Cat wants to chase them all,
these loosened leaves
outside the window.

October 6: Fog

A vague memory of hearing the foghorn in the night, and when I wake, the sky is white and Mount Battie's draped in mist.

Birch's yellow leaves glow
within the fog.
I wake slowly.

October 1: Maple

Autumn makes its arrival felt, touching trees here and there with color. The maple outside my office window was particularly dazzling this afternoon after the skies cleared and the setting sun backlit the reddening leaves.

Epiphany of fall--

this burning tree,

this sinking sun.

November 8: Seeing Red

Late fall the landscape begins to wither and fade. While trees are still hanging onto a surprising number of leaves, they're duller, burnished browns now. Grasses are dried up, flowers gone. So as I drove to Augusta this afternoon I was surprised to see nature's most vivid color suddenly blazing forth. Red! I put on the brakes as I came upon a small blueberry barren, its brilliant crimson emphasized by remnant patches of snow lingering in a shady corner. Is there any red more breathtaking than an autumn blueberry barren?

Blueberry barrens in Hope, Ragged Mountain in background

Maybe... Heading up Route 17 I was then struck by another vision of red: amid the dried-up reeds and blown-out cattails of a small wetland, a winterberry bush shone forth, its berries glowing in the sunlight like Rudolph's nose (as seen in the traditional holiday special with Burl Ives). Further along, more clumps of berry bushes popped out, exclamations along the way.

The sun was sinking low as I returned from Augusta a few hours later, washing the trees with that last rich light of the day. The mellow brown leaves were transformed into a breathtaking coppery bronze. With trees lining both sides of the road, it was like driving through a corridor lit by a living, reddish glow, enhanced all the more by a crisp, clear blue sky backdrop containing the almost full moon. Now the winterberries blurred together into a haze of color as I drove past. The scarlet of the blueberry fields deepened. If I were an artist and tried to paint with those reds, it would look unreal, unnatural. But there I was, surrounded by them. Real life red, almost pulsing.

Before all goes white,
red appears: blueberry fields
and winterberries.

October 30: First Snow

This has got to be one of the earliest first snowfalls (of any accumulation) that I can remember in this coastal town. However, it did not add up to the predicted 6-8 inches we were supposed to get. I'm not sure if I'm disappointed by this or not. On one hand, the first snow is always really exciting somehow; on the other, we're no doubt going to be getting plenty of snow over the next 6 months or more. The storm came with some gusty winds, which woke me up throughout the night, gave me strange dreams, and blew free our string of prayer flags on the shed, carrying our prayers to the heavens.

Our backyard this morning, Megunticook River winding through

My husband and I were entertained this morning when the snow plow went by. The kids across the street having a snowball fight were probably just as effective at scooping up the meager layer of snow in the street as the plow--but I have no doubt that the plow guy just really wanted to get out there and play around and make some noise, necessary or not.

The snow does contrast beautifully with the remaining fall leaves, reminding us that we're still in that time of seasonal transition, on the cusp between fall and winter. And, appropriately, between the living and the dead: tomorrow night is Hallowe'en (or Samhain, pagan new year), a liminal time when the wall between the living and the dead is thinnest. Thus, the arrival of ghosts and demons that continue to haunt our neighborhoods, to be appeased by treats. This snow fall was just the precursor of shifts and changes to come.

Night of first snow fall
I dreamed a new house, and owls:
transitions coming.