To Autumn

I love Fall. I’ve always loved Fall. A few days ago, a friend said he found Autumn sad because everything dies; summer is over and Winter is coming. Then in Spring, after a long season of steel-blue skies and urban hues of grey, he is happy because there is colour again.

I love Fall for the same reason I love earthy, unpretentious, heart-felt folk music – like that of Damien Rice. When you touch something so deep and honest that it hurts your soul, you know you’re alive.

That’s how I feel when I walk alone in Fall. Life has given way to rich beautiful tones of yellows, oranges and browns. It’s like the world is trying to get your attention with a short burst of colour as if to demand, on your part, refection: reflection on the passing of time and what you have done with it.

It’s also a sober reminder that a long Winter is ahead.

Fall is the perfect time for Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for my faith. I think it should be mandatory for all churches that don’t have regular communion services to have communion in October. Christ died to save us from ourselves and then He rose again so that we might have life. That's a pretty power picture of the seasons, I'd say.

I also love Fall because in our modern Western world it means that things are actually beginning or starting up again.

To Autumn

by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,

And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

“The narrow bud opens her beauties to

The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;

Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and

Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,

Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,

And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

“The spirits of the air live in the smells

Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round

The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”

Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,

Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak

Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.