Autumn! The very thought of it is enough to bring out the writer in anyone! As I turn over in my mind those evocative autumn words, the creative juices start to flow. It’s like a brainstorming session for Year 5’s creative writing assignment. The words and phrases, those perennial words especially reserved for this time of year, bubble up to the surface of my mind and hover there: russet red, bronze, amber, burnished gold, rustling leaves, ripening fruit… smoky bonfires, deep drifts of dry, crackling leaves and a range of special colours – red, gold, brown, yellow and crimson. They fire my imagination and make me long to pick up my pen.
I am seated in my garden on one of those golden autumnal days, just soaking it up, enjoying the peace and calm and the last rays of sunshine before winter sets in. The past week we have had storms: dark, threatening clouds, heavy downpours, gusting winds – real ‘autumnal’ weather. But today we have seen the other side of autumn – the roaring lion has vanished and the lamb has appeared: mild, soft and full of balm.
I am seated in my garden on one of those golden autumnal days, just soaking it up, enjoying the peace and calm and the last rays of sunshine before winter sets in. The past week we have had storms: dark, threatening clouds, heavy downpours, gusting winds – real ‘autumnal’ weather. But today we have seen the other side of autumn – the roaring lion has vanished and the lamb has appeared: mild, soft and full of balm.
I look around me and am once again surprised by nature’s knack of colour coding. The creeper on the wall is already turning colour. The big three-pronged leaves that cover it are beginning to curl slightly as they dry out and lose the sap that has kept them green and vigorous through spring and summer. The edges are turning crimson and then vivid red and it’s spreading. The show has begun. The pyrocanthus we have so tenderly cared for and encouraged these past two years is showing (at last) a huge crop of bright tangerine-coloured berries. We have tied a criss-cross of garden twine across the pergola to prevent the pigeons from landing on the shrub and systematically gobbling its berries. As time goes on and winter sets in in earnest we may take down our makeshift ‘net’ and allow the birds to plunder them – but not yet. I want to enjoy their rich colour for a little longer.
There are rust-coloured chrysanthemums in a pot, with glowing yellow middles. The oregano is turning to shades of pinky-red. The begonias, in full flower ever since late May, are still a glorious scarlet and the two fuchsia bushes dangle their graceful fronds of crimson/purple blooms over the edges of the flower beds. The hydrangea in the corner is in tune with the theme too, showing off its huge, faded, red flower heads, which must stay there till February before they can be pruned. Even the oleander is struggling to give us a few late blooms, although it is getting far too chilly for this Mediterranean plant which has so tempted us. It stands by the wall, basking in the late summer’s reflected heat, and offers up its handful of deep red blossoms. It is not suited to our north European climate but we cannot resist its charms.
I think back to the spring, when the garden was filled with another of nature’s colour schemes: yellow for forsythia, polyanthus, primrose and daffodil; blue for ceanothus and grape hyacinth. Pansies, iris and crocus seem to come in both shades. But the seasons have their special colours, it seems. Autumn is the colour of sunsets, which seems appropriate somehow. The fire is being extinguished from the year and also from the skies.
There are rust-coloured chrysanthemums in a pot, with glowing yellow middles. The oregano is turning to shades of pinky-red. The begonias, in full flower ever since late May, are still a glorious scarlet and the two fuchsia bushes dangle their graceful fronds of crimson/purple blooms over the edges of the flower beds. The hydrangea in the corner is in tune with the theme too, showing off its huge, faded, red flower heads, which must stay there till February before they can be pruned. Even the oleander is struggling to give us a few late blooms, although it is getting far too chilly for this Mediterranean plant which has so tempted us. It stands by the wall, basking in the late summer’s reflected heat, and offers up its handful of deep red blossoms. It is not suited to our north European climate but we cannot resist its charms.
I think back to the spring, when the garden was filled with another of nature’s colour schemes: yellow for forsythia, polyanthus, primrose and daffodil; blue for ceanothus and grape hyacinth. Pansies, iris and crocus seem to come in both shades. But the seasons have their special colours, it seems. Autumn is the colour of sunsets, which seems appropriate somehow. The fire is being extinguished from the year and also from the skies.
Metaphors abound for this time of year. The ‘season of mellow fruitfulness’ applies equally to the year’s end and to the more whimsical ‘autumn of our lives’. However, autumn, so glorious in its display, turns slowly to winter; vivid sunsets fade into the dark, dark night; and the autumn of our lives turns inescapably to death and decay. Such is life; such is its end. Soon, in the garden, we shall be looking at bare twigs, piles of dead leaves and an empty grey wall, relieved only by whatever berries the pigeons have left us.
Have I depressed you with this talk of death and decay? It happens. Autumn cannot help but run into winter. But, in the meantime, I will enjoy autumn’s beauty and colour: its own special richness and vitality, and I will take care to remind myself that, after winter, comes, once more, the re-incarnation of spring in that ever-turning circle of life.
Have I depressed you with this talk of death and decay? It happens. Autumn cannot help but run into winter. But, in the meantime, I will enjoy autumn’s beauty and colour: its own special richness and vitality, and I will take care to remind myself that, after winter, comes, once more, the re-incarnation of spring in that ever-turning circle of life.
1 comment:
I loved your words.
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