Autumn Dream

Oh, these beautiful golden days when the light creates such spectacular beauty all around us! This week I feel as if I am living in an

Autumn Dream

and hoping that I can stay in this reverie for just a little longer. These beautiful warm days have been such a gift, like a second summer with autumn colors. Two days ago I photographed the pond just at sunrise when the early morning light made everything glow. It lasted only a few minutes and then everything returned to its normal hues. But I got to see it and to photograph it when the light was so spectacular. What a gift!

Already the scene in our backyard has changed! The cottonwood tree down by the pond is almost completely bare. Just a few golden leaves cling to its uppermost branches. And the river birch is also nearly naked as well.

We went for a drive yesterday afternoon to see if I could make a few photos of the spectacular colors. But it was really the wrong time of day, wrong light for photography. Though I did enjoy the beautiful colors I didn’t make many photographs. But I did manage to make one image that I like.

This is a small pond that I pass when I go out to Wolsfeld Woods. Today we stopped at a small gravel parking area beside the pond and I was able to make this image by zooming in enough to eliminate most of the sky from the image. I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded the image because I was almost certain that the light had been too harsh and contrasty.

I also made some camera movement photographs this week that express the fleetingness of this season to me. It seems a perfect week to share again Mary Oliver’s poem, Song for Autumn…

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the fires that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

   — Mary Oliver

Enjoy this fleeting beautiful time of year!

May you walk in beauty.