Autumn leaf

If I were an autumn leaf
would I set red in my hair
to blaze against the dying day

or dust my dress with gold
to light the night
with soft shining?

Would the earth creep into my veins
until I curled and crisped,
an offering for hungry feet,

not to fear the decay of death
but shoot bright a light
to warm hearts on winter’s journey?

Jane Upchurch

Autumn

If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.

Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992

A Day in Autumn

A Day in Autumn

It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening
In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.

R.S. Thomas

Acorns and ladybirds

I managed to get out into the garden on my own with my camera this week, the first time for ages.

Autumn is really beginning to arrive here. Many of the acorns on the oak tree have dropped & the "hats" are left hanging. The squirrels have been having a feast with them...






The leaves are starting to turn...



There are loads of ladybirds around, all sorts of combinations of markings (I found even more in the car park but didn't have my camera with me!)





The tomatoes are still ripening but I think I may need to find a recipe for green tomato chutney.



Elliot’s Oak

Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud
With sounds of unintelligible speech,
Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach,
Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd;
With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed,
Thou speakest a different dialect to each;
To me a language that no man can teach,
Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud.
For underneath thy shade, in days remote,
Seated like Abraham at eventide
Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown
Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote
His Bible in a language that hath died
And is forgotten, save by thee alone.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow