(Host) More than the other seasons, poet and commentator Anne Averyt
thinks autumn is the season of change, a time of passing. But before
it’s gone she wants to delight in its presence.
(Averyt) I
wasn’t yet finished savoring summer this year when autumn arrived. As
usual, fall snuck up on me, jumped out and shouted "Boo!" Reality has an
annoying way of intruding on our day dreams. Reverie is brief and so is
summer.
I was still floating on a cloud, adrift above the
daffodils, still walking through the lush green of early evening dew,
when suddenly fall rushed in. More than any other season, it seems fall is the season of change, the time of passing.
Spring is
about renewal, the return of warmth, the reawakening of life. Summer is
just plain fat and lazy and Old Man Winter, white and crusty. But
autumn, when it comes, stomps its foot and demands our attention with
its confusion of color and parsimony of light. In October, daylight
dwindles and the mountains dapple into pied beauty as autumn rings out a
clarion call of change, giving us no choice but to listen.
I
remember the signs of autumn growing up in suburban Philadelphia – brown
wings that fell like miniature helicopters from oak trees and horse
chestnuts breaking out of spiky green shells – both collected for a
child’s treasure trove. In high school, fall was the time to run the
hockey fields and caravan through town on a Saturday afternoon,
celebrating a football victory.
Over the years I’ve learned the
man-made signs of autumn in Vermont. Woodpiles climbing in drive ways,
ski racks back on top of station wagons and newscasters telling us which
parts of the state are "peak".
I’ve lived through so many
Vermont autumns now that I think I’m beginning to channel Robert Frost.
Even his name speaks what lies just around the corner – frosty nights
followed by the first early snow.
Fall is official now. The air
that began to crisp a few weeks ago, the chill that started sneaking up
on September nights tell me summer is past. Change is not only in the
air, but in the light as the sun’s arc shifts in the afternoon sky and
stretches shadows long on the sidewalk.
Still, I think it’s
important in this raucous season to hold on to a moment in time. I don’t
want to count how many autumn leaves I’ve seen in my life or wonder how
many autumns remain. I just want to savor the fading scent of
hydrangeas when I walk to my door. I want to stand in the yard and look
and listen to the squawking geese flying high overhead. I
want to linger on my afternoon walk, breathe the crisp air and
study the patterns of the shadows.
A season is passing and I want to honor its presence in this moment because another one exactly like it will never come again.