Short Shorts

Monday

Light hovers on the horizon under dark skies as winter solstice approaches.
  • We (should have) learned in fifth grade that around December 21 is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  Not only does the earth radiate heat away for most of the 24 hours, but the warming rays of the sun are slanted and not as effective as at other times.  Intuition tells us this would be the coldest day of the year as well.  Not true.  Days remain shorter than nights until around March 21 _ this part of the Earth continues to lose heat.  So intuition would think that maybe spring equinox is the coldest.
  • Temperatures actually trail the solar path by a little over month, so coldest days are at end January and early February.  And a lot depends on general cloud overcast, snow cover, jet stream path, what fronts the Canadians hurl at us, and strange terms like “polar vortex” that meteorologists keep inventing.
  • Like so much of science, fifth grade conceptions are often generally right but specifically wrong.  I’m very glad, because such chaotic unpredictability is what makes our real world so marvelous and constantly surprising.

Tuesday

Flocks of ducks loudly proclaim their intention of staying around for a while as the weather warms a bit.
  • Living close to nature has become romanticized.   Genealogy has some people dreaming of life as a Native American, or a Celt, or in the wild Teutonic tribes.  The ancient foods, practices, religions, rituals, spirits made life more meaningful than in these degenerate times.  Most of those imaginings _ for good reason _ focus on happy summer days, the freshness of spring, the tang of crisp autumn.
  • In reality, as winter closed in at northern latitudes Nature became harsh, painful, and raw terror.  Famine and freezing were constant concerns.  Nights passed with nothing to break 16 or more hours of darkness.  The tales related by 17th century French fur traders concerning how Neolithic peoples of the American west starved, suffered, and often died in unbelievable misery are astounding.
  • All in all, I vote in favor of these degenerate times.   

Wednesday

Sun sets about as far south as it ever gets, almost early afternoon.
  • Rage, rage against the dying of the light …
  • But sometimes teasingly brilliant noontimes on frigid days are even more cruel.

Thursday

A tiny local grotto along the shoreline road frozen into interesting patterns as cold set in.
  • I think the quality of sunlight is a little different around winter solstice.  The lower sun is naturally redder, just as it is at sunset.  Frequently present ice crystals in the upper air scatter the light more evenly.  There are peculiar effects from angles and reflections on the clouds, with orange patches even in the middle of the day through breaks in dark clouds.
  • On the other hand, I am never quite sure how much of that is real.  Just as I easily learn to make any perceptions normal, I can make any perceptions fit my logic or mood.  If I believe light is altered, I will probably see it as being so.  Doesn’t much matter, as long as I enjoy what I am looking at and try to be conscious of its beauty.

Friday 

Low orange light lines a dark solstice horizon,  with harbor lighthouse hulking behind bar branches.
  • Winter solstice has been stripped of its terror, and it is subsumed into general worldwide celebrations of a common end of year.  There is no reason to feel bad about that, it’s now just another part of the natural calendar.  Those who regret the passing of ancient rites and rituals may mourn its decline, but anyone with sense knows the modern world _ slick and smooth and always the same _ is far preferable to the bipolar roller coaster of feast and famine.
  • Traditions are at least maintained in the display of lights everywhere fighting back against the early fall of night.  There is something hauntingly pathetically beautiful in a tree lit against dark snow by dinnertime.  It can be seen as a statement against cynicism, depression, and the oncoming inevitable.  In fact, it is surely more just a continuation of what has always been done, which in itself is a kind of miracle.

Saturday

This dirt path looks perfectly set to carry us to grandma’s house.
“Goodnight, Chip.  Pleasant dreams.”
“You too, Dale.”
“Did you stuff yourself enough this year?” asks the first chipmunk. 
“Oh, sure.  That feeder every day was full.  It was just great.  I didn’t even have to look much.”
“See you in the spring, then.  Stay warm.”
“Zzzzz ….” 

Hibernation sets in suddenly this solstice.

Saturday

Another view of special light at this time of year.
Once dark silent world, growing cold
Now city lights reflect all night, confusing birds and other creatures
Once people beginning a sluggish cycle for months of grim survival
Now grand shopping sprees and feasts
Once fears lurked right outside every window, if there was a window

Now fears are huge and worse, but at least far away.

Hey,, Old Man!

Monday

First snowfall of this winter just severe enough to transform views from our windows.
  • A few weeks after Santa Claus arrived in town on a fire truck, Old Man Winter blew in with a bit more fanfare, dumping 5 inches locally on top of a small ice storm.  Enough to make our sandy hills difficult, and the steep driveway almost impossible.  Predictions now are for more flurries and a string of extremely cold days and nights.
  • This was thick white stuff, coating trees’ limbs with more depth than the still relatively warm ground.  Good for making snow creatures (even OMW is learning to be PC.)  Still more beautiful than annoying, as the first appearance of snow always is.

Tuesday

Lovely blue harbor is clear of boats and buoys and fringed with remnants of last snowfall.
  • Anticipation of a snowstorm is shared by young and old _ and few in the middle.  Those who wish to have no school and who have nowhere in particular to be on any given day can glory in the possible disruption of routines by slippery or impassible roads.  For those fortunate few, first flakes are eagerly awaited, and the hush during the event enjoyed immensely from the warmth of their living rooms.
  • After any significant accumulation, a quiet beautiful white coating has transformed the world.  Often the sun, accompanied by a cutting cold breeze, sparkles on lacy branches and blanketed evergreens.  Snowplows struggle by.  In a few hours snowblowers will crank up. But for just a while, the local universe gleams new and pristine and lovely and all good things seem possible.

Wednesday

Salt meadows have turned gold, accented under dark blue storm clouds.
  • The driveway’s lovely, dark, and deep …
  • My environment, alas, does not match that of Robert Frost

Thursday

Patrol craft heads into frigid waters, trees finally stripped to bare branches.
  • People seek omens.  We find ones that support our views and interpret them to match our own outlooks.  So while the weather has been warmer than normal, everyone who is concerned about global warming claim it was a precursor of what will come.  When unexpectedly harsh winter storms roll in early, those who fear the coming winter claim this proves it will be a blustery one. 
  • The key to weather perspective is “average,” that fictional normal.  We accept that winter must be colder than summer, that there is a range of “usual” storms and temperatures, that any given day may differ considerably from what happens around it.  But nature is never average.  It delivers its effects in clumps rather than a smooth gravy, and we are too immersed to keep perspective.

Friday

The beach is in full winter mode now, ice on deck, people stopping by for a few minutes at most.
  • Winter wonderland may last for two or three days, but then it turns into winter slum.  Car exhausts darken roadside snow, puddles gather trash and refreeze into ugliness.  Patches of muddy ground show through crusty slush.  The tree branches, of course, are long bare and back to looking forlorn.
  • Early in the season, this tragic change happens quickly and all returns to normal.  But by February there is an ongoing glacier of disposal dump everywhere, blackened shapes rule former snowdrift, and all the new layers do is temporarily hide the nastiness beneath.  Even driveways become corroded with sand and salt in an often vain attempt to keep cars from slipping around during trips to the garage.  By then, of course, all thoughts have longingly turned to spring.

Saturday

Second snowfall of the week coats the neighborhood, just before the third storm arrives as temperatures remain in 20’s.
“Where has all the food gone,” asks a first-year cardinal of another.  “It always used to be here.  Now there is just this … whatever it is.”
“Snow,” answers an older brother.  “This white stuff is snow.  You’ll see a lot more of it soon.”
“But what about finding something to eat?”
“Oh, now is time to look on trees.  You’ll see, there’s a lot to feast on.  Well, at least for now.”
“What do you mean by that?” asks the little one anxiously.

“Never mind,” replies the other.  We’ll both find out soon enough as months go on.”

Sunday

Outside lights barely penetrate heavy wet snow after another few inches wear out winter’s immanent arrival.
Old Man Winter, he brought snow
Caused the harsh North wind to blow
With a knick knack paddy whack freezing to the bone

Old Man Winter came roaring home.

Lights Fights

Monday

Lights and wreath more symbolic than visible from the road, but one of our anchors to Christmas past.
  • Once Thanksgiving goes by, Christmas light on homes begin to appear.  This year everything is a little early, at least for those who participate at all.  What with people off to Florida, just getting too old to care, or protesting commercialization, there is a strange mix of excess and non-participation.  Or perhaps it was always like this and I never noticed.
  • Part of the rhythm is dictated by work schedules and anticipated weather.  It used to be a lot was accomplished on weekends, when suddenly Sunday night would be illuminated.  But now with people working odd hours, or not at all in extended households, and with others hiring crews, and technology being what it is, a massive demonstration can spring up any day of the week.  Like flicking a switch.  At some point, I suddenly realize I am behind the curve and pull out the annual offerings at my wife’s insistence.

Tuesday

Cheerful lawn decorations to appreciate during the day.
  • Beachcroft runs the full range of decorations.  Some houses are fully lit, although only one extravaganza “nouveau riche” exists down at the harbor.  Some houses show nothing at all, either not Christian or pure bah humbug.  A few more or less tasteful lawn candy canes or elves pop onto lawns.
  • Generally, however, this neighborhood is subdued.  The season is noted,  a small display is welcome, and solstice blues are resisted with twinkles.  It has remained warm enough to walk around and enjoy the ambience during early evening.

Wednesday

Unusually warm day hazes background, while foreground demonstrates the arrival of December.
  • Star light, star bright few stars to see tonight.
  • Sky is always overwhelmed by haze, town glow, and aircraft.

Thursday

Arrival of a supermoon also brings in super high tides, filled with newly dried flotsam.
  • Displaying lights is one way of keeping off the ancient terror of solstice short days with deep cold and snow right around the corner.  Today, in spite of our comforts, problems sometimes seem worse and worse _ particular for those who take the media seriously.  Having a gaudy brightly lit property is apparently one way of fighting back.
  • America consumerism preaches the sermon of purchasing meaning, in houses or cars or jobs or _ at this time of year_ with so much illumination outside that a place threatens to outdo the sun if turned on during the day.  Each homeowner a midget Medici, showing how mighty the family has become.

Friday

Nature has not yet quite given up on a display of colors, but you have to look hard.
  • I admit I enjoy going out and looking at the beautiful evening show.   It is easy to be a curmudgeon and make fun of all the hoopla, but holiday lights are an American tradition, especially a 1950’s and on American tradition  It is comforting to see it repeated year after year.
  • The conspicuous consumption and environmental degradation aspects of all this used to be more of a concern, but with the new LED lights even those have faded.  And, after all, it is only for a little while, some few weeks.  Although, like everything else these days, I note the tendency to keep them up longer and longer, sometimes even year round

Saturday

Much more enjoyable night scene than the security lighting we usually have to endure.
“That’s beautiful,” exclaims Joan, as we drive past another commercial display of trees wrapped in blue
sparkles. 
“Remember when we used to drive the kids around in the evening?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah, and my father too.  Those were wonderful times.”
“This year there seem to be more and more,” I remark.
“Tacky,” she agrees, “Especially the blow up figures crowding the lawns.”
“Well, they were after our time, I guess.”
“I wish we could wrap our trees like that,” she sighs.

“I’m not about to break my bones climbing around like that.  Of course, when I was a kid, it was my job to climb up the big fir out front to put up the high lights.”

Sunday

What is “tasteful” varies with whatever current fad has arrived recently _ all-white is in.
The snows of yesteryear may be gone
Today’s remains fresh
Soon to join its ancestors
Perhaps something to ponder

Perhaps simply to enjoy now

Heavy Skies

Monday

Dark clouds never show when you want them _ bright day, white stretches, no complaints.
  • This summer was full of rain, but those storms seemed filled with light anyway.  November rains and November skies are different.  Perhaps because the sun is dimmer and lower, clouds are dark and threatening, dramatic and purple.  When darkness accompanies precipitation scenes are cast into deep twilight.
  • Now there are many fewer hours of daylight.  Only a few of them, on the best of days, are filled with bright sparkle and blinding flash.  When that happens, the contrast with the “new normal” is all the more intense.  Far more often such moments feel like temporary breaks in some coming apocalypse, heralded by the moaning swish of dry falling leaves and the deep cutting chill of raw wind.

Tuesday

Low tide exposes rocks and old pilings, reminding us of spare months to come.
  • We can easily find patterns in ink blots, reflections, leaves, fate, tea leaves, entrails, history, economics, politics, and clouds.  Faces, dragons, random images appear to warn, frighten, entertain, or soothe.  Our rational natures know it is our projections that create these shapes, but our deeper reptile emotions believe there must be truth lurking behind what we intuit.
  • Most of the time we hardly notice clouds, except as comment on likely weather.  Once in a while we may admire ethereal beauty in a sunset, or enjoy a frisson of danger as thunderclouds sweep near.  Yet they are always there, in reality or potential, framing a large chunk of our outside world. 
  • November clouds signal holidays to me _ Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year.  Their immense dark waves, or thick quilts, or foggy damp should create a mood of gloom.  Yet I feel none, I am secured against these wisps of vapor, and I have carefully buried most of my hidden fears under the rush of exciting days upcoming.

Wednesday

Hardly typical of November, a solitary puff floats over the dock.
  • I wandered lonely as a cloud …
  • Clouds are rarely alone in the sky, often massing in crowds, mobs, and hordes.

Thursday

Reeds in final feathery fall splendor before being ravaged by storm and snow.
  • Late fall is muted earth colors, as all the flash and dazzle of summer blooms and spectacular dying gasps of foliage fade and fall more or less silently away.  As the world turns brown, the sky takes its turn at dominance, and will hold it for a while.  Are those fair weather clouds, or wind, or rain, or possibly a blizzard? 
  • The various changes wrought by overcast have their own effect on the hues seen below.  A clear sky seems to give true colors _ until we observe the blue of snow from reflections.  Purple or grey overhead sets its own deep patterns on everything.  And we become aware how a seemingly warm day can suddenly turn cold and raw whenever a shadow occludes the sun _ accompanied by immediate darkness that chills right back into our soul.

Friday

I am too amateur to retouch such views from our porch,  sometimes mesmerizing for half an hour or so.
  • Skies have apparently always held portents, from meteors to supernovae to the creeping of the sun lower or higher each day except at the equator.  More transient flights of birds and cloud patterns were also thrown into the mix.  Clouds, at least, do more or less equate to what may happen.  Winter coming back in the northern hemisphere, snow, or rain herald a true time of changes and often hardship.
  • Surely blood-red sunsets were more meaningful to native American than the usual midsummer cheerful displays of sparkling gold and crimson.  Perhaps there were fewer such back before heavy industrial pollution.  Even in our science-minded time, it seems hard to ignore what such clouds are trying to tell us.

Saturday

Wind clouds crouch on the northern horizon, beyond this patch of clear crisp breeze.
“Hey Carl, nice day!  Dig out the winter gear yet?”
Carl glances up at the threatening cloudbank hovering on the northern horizon.  “About a week ago.  But this month it’s pretty useless no matter what.”
“Just colder, that’s all …” I begin
“No, you know better.  Rain is much warmer.  It’s the clear days that come with frigid temperatures.”
“Well, sometimes,” I admit.  We both sense the freshening breeze. 
“True mostly,” he insists.  “Gotta run, still a mile to go and I’m not sure I have the time.”

“Right, have a nice day.”  I speed up a bit myself as the first drizzled drops begin.

Sunday

Crystalline waters free of algae with a few floating leaves reflect impossibly complicated possible patterns.
Dark low clouds may fit my mood
Or I may find they contradict
I alone invest portent
It’s true the world is but a stage
But we are not bit players here
I am sole author of this play

Plot and meaning, self and clouds.

Its only audience.

Thanks! But?

Monday

Morning sun through Japanese maple leaves generates an incredible stained glass magnificence.
  • These days I always seem to be in the best of times, with the fear of the worst of times upcoming.  Every morning I am infinitely grateful for all I have, tangible and intangible.  My particular life is a festival and wonder.  My worst sin would be not recognizing that is so.  Thanks on any given day are required.
  • This culture always expects a “but.”  There are always counterarguments  to optimism, happiness, and hope.  I hear them all the time; I try to resist.  When I do, even I recognize I sometimes seem like some shallow bumpkin unable to appreciate the cares and woes of the adults in the room.
  • I try to purge myself of envy of those who seem to have more.  I try to avoid guilt for those who have less.  I try to appreciate each moment as the treasure it is.  And I work on shoving most of my worries into the constant future where they belong.

Tuesday

Temporary near-break in thick wind clouds provides all the drama this cold morning.
  • My amazement starts with breakfast.  I know slow eating has become a cultural phenomenon, but mine is more basic.  I consciously pause a few of my usual spoonfuls of Cheerios and fresh berries to regard them as miracles.  Think of sowing and growing and harvesting and preparing and transporting and selling and then the fact that I have the means to purchase.  It is a stream of commerce I can hardly comprehend.  And it happens every day, not just on one or two special times a year.
  • The little things that everyone _ and I admit myself _ takes for granted are everywhere.  My house is warm and dry.  A hot morning shower was all but unknown less than a century ago.  I am more concerned with keeping my weight down than going hungry.  Electricity does my bidding _ but you know how it goes on and on. 
  • I cultivate this sense of wonder and try to find at least one aspect of daily to marvel at.  It is scary to realize how tangled our comfortable lives are, and how quickly it might all go wrong.

Wednesday

Light blue sky, dark azure water, white blazing sun shines on trees shedding leaves, harbor losing boats.
  • “Wheat and tares together sown …”
  • We still do not know what to do with human weeds in civilized fields.

Thursday

Solitary leaf presides over a dark scene presaging winter.
  • Awe is essentially a religious feeling, far deeper than mere appreciation.  Awe involves suddenly being struck by the immensity of everything and how impossible our existence is.  For example, I can never comprehend the fact that I exist _ my trillions of cells, billions or trillions of synapses possibly outnumbering stars in the universe, my ongoing microsecond chemical changes everywhere in perfect harmony and furious activity.  And that is before I even open my senses and look at what is around.  Before I even remember there is a past filled with more miracles.  Before I have time to worry about what it all means or is it connected or might there be some grand unknowable plan.
  • Logically minded scientific principles would seem to narrow this to less infinite answers.  But science never avoids awe.  The more that is known, the more ridiculously impossible our lives seem.  The more incongruously joyful my life has been.  I cannot even begin to understand, for that matter, the foundation of my most important traits such as the ability to sense happiness.
  • This holiday, I pledge to cultivate awe more assiduously.  Awe of being as a foundation for religious impulse is probably completely “meet and proper.” 

Friday

Final fall colors blaze before endless wind and rain herald the new season.
  • Leftovers are often served with gravy.  In the fifties, gravy was a standard way to hide odd flavors or to extend food.  Gravy was found on many of my dinners, on school lunches, on commercial offerings, on the brand-new frozen TV dinners.  That gravy of old was thick, and rich, and salty, and fatty, and made poor pickings seem elegant.
  • But, by the same token, it was a lower middle class standard.  Wealthy people might eat roasts “au jus” but creamed and gravy-laden fare was for stick-to-the-ribs working folks.  The “gravy train” _ a ticket to work a little less for a secure income _ was an aspiration of those whose lives were filled with relentless jobs and barely adequate income.
  • With increasing wealth and choice, gravy and cream are rarely featured on recipes, except at nostalgic moments
    such as with Thanksgiving turkey.   Those who embrace the imagined glow of such times should sometimes reflect on what gravy _ and for that matter feast days themselves _ imply about normal life the rest of the time.  

Saturday

All that remains of a once-vibrant pine along the shore, the last of its kind in that habitat.
Joan and I sit alone, dining on remembrances this Thanksgiving. 
“Oh,” she says with a sigh, “I miss those old days with everyone here.”
“Yeah, I know,” I reply.  “Your Mom cooking, your Dad proud, brothers chatting while young kids run around and your cousins and aunts stopping by all day, maybe us visiting around a little.”
“Wasn’t it all amazing?  What happened?”
“Death, of course.  Growing up.  Moving away.  You know that.  But we still have the memories of good times.”
“It’s all changed now,” she complains.  “I wish we could at least get our kids to come back.”
“The world itself has changed,” I say for the hundredth time.  “Greg has to work, Wayne is too far, and we ourselves are a little too busy and tired to rush about visiting.”
“But it should be more special.”
“Maybe.  I don’t think so.  Every day is special, and we can always have another dinner when they are here.”

“It’s not the same,” she claims with finality.

Sunday

Last seeds cling to dry stalks as autumn winds shift to winter strength and night chill turns to freeze.
Amazing grace, a pretty tune
Used too frequently
I don’t feel at all like a wretch
Though I may sometimes seem one
My universe is more eternal than ten thousand years
And encompasses infinite realms real and unreal
What I experience in my universe is all the universe there is
As is your own
Solipsistic madness perhaps

More likely truth.

Free Falling

Monday

The reluctant deluge has just begun and is beautifully transforming in its own unique way.
  • I am as fickle as the next person.  On any given day I can happily accept the weather or fretfully resist.  My mood varies by season and by my interpretation of season.
  • For example, spring can be long and dreary and endless, promise with no fulfillment.  Or it can be a time of wonderful surprise as hidden things grow and blossom.  Summer hot and sticky and stultifying or a fantastic feast of senses.  And fall _ well October always seems a month of sadness, encapsulating all that is going away and being lost, expanding beyond the yard, the horizon, the skies themselves until it encompasses aging itself.
  • But now _ well for me that has passed.  As nights chill down to frost and days struggle to retain memory of heat, I discover new purpose.  Fortify against the coming winter.  Enjoy nature closing the show, as I would the deconstruction of a traveling tent circus.  Make plans for dark evenings and fireside meditation.  Await the first snow with expectation, and get into the spirit of our over-the-top end of year festivities.
  • I admit I am inconstant beyond measure or logic.

Tuesday

Bittersweet fruit at peak of perfection, a cheery holiday accent and presumed delicacy for birds.
  • Raking leaves when I was employed was a tremendous chore, squeezed into weekend hours between other errands.  I used a rake and enjoyed the silence and felt virtuous at engaging in outside exercise.  These days, there is no silence, I have all the time necessary, and I have acquired a strong (electric) leaf blower like everyone else.
  • Maple leaves fall first, thickly matting whenever harsh November rains pelt down.  If not removed, they kill grass and smother flower beds, drying their top layers each week for months just enough to continue to blow everywhere.  Heavy, ugly, dark, and somehow never decaying the way garden guidebooks proclaim.
  • Next are the hickories, which are a totally different prospect.  These compound leaves remain together, stay dry, cling to everything.  Without much weight, their volume fills bag after bag.  They hang on shrub branches and if not removed by hand will flap there all winter, looking out of place, annoying by their refusal to move on.  Sometimes, I know by experience, they will last another entire season.  So they are not just to be raked, but also to be plucked from shrubs by hand.
  • Oh well.  Two or three weeks of effort and it is all literally in the bag for another year.

Wednesday

The brown tide of freezing nights coats everything with a temporary dark varnish like that once applied to old-master paintings.
  • It is inevitable that each leaf must fall.
  • It is impossible _ from math, science, common sense _ to predict exactly when.

Thursday

Lovely earth hues frame much of the earth, sea and sky this week.
  • The relative warmth this year has led to procrastination in winterizing.  I found it almost silly to be bringing hoses in, draining and turning off outside water, cleaning summer objects from the patio.  The air was warm, the sun hot, the leaves still green.  Why not wait just another day, until the clues from the environment matched up with the notes from the calendar?
  • But with a lifetime of experience, I stayed with the planned schedule.  I admit I feel a bit smug now that frost has arrived.  Not so much compared to other people _ they can do as they will with no concern from me _ but compared to the myself-that-might-have-been.  I can now sit back and warmly laugh at what might have been a nasty business.

Friday

Fat and settled in for the winter, ducks calmly cruise across a shallow pond.
  • My sky is opening up.  Each morning I sit for an hour before a picture window as I nurse my coffee and coax my mind back to full focus.  My view is constrained by an azalea bush below, an andromeda along the side _ both stay green all year.  No mountains, seas, or city skyline for me _ just a nearby japanese maple tree, and dense huge hickories and oaks beyond that.
  • All summer, there are mere glimpses of sky.  In October the color show begins on various leaves.  And finally, through November, light breaks through as leaves fall.  Already I there is more openness.  Soon there will be clouds, birdflight, and full beams shining through branches.  I will be able to view weather as it arrives, and note each snowflake as it falls.
  • Elsewhen perhaps I would have wished a more dramatic view of surf or hi
    gh peaks or towering buildings.  But now I am more than content with what is offered and I strive to each day find it miraculous in its own way.  As is each sip of coffee that I savor.

Saturday

Shriveling willow streamers blow almost horizontal in a blustery north gale.
Our grandson toddler is wheeled around Hecksher Park, where the leaves are all gold and orange, the geese flock is thick, and the turtles have already gone into hibernation.  He wants to talk, perhaps he imagines he is talking, but all that emerges are moans and babble.  We talk back anyway.
“errrrrrr.  Baw bye brrr.”
“That’s right, Nicholas, see how pretty the trees are.”
“flabbb  bbbk  hmmmmm”
“Yes, there are a lot of geese this year.”
“heaaaa heaaaa bllllk.”
“We know you really like puppies.  That’s a cute one, isn’t it?”
“Arrk arrk bye maa maaan.”
“Little kids are indeed exciting.”

I kick up a few more leaves swirling around my feet as the November winds rush by.

Sunday

Part of a large flock of ducks/geese rides out a strong wind; most will probably move on soon.
A single leaf.
Months old, billions of cells.
Molecules frantically churning light into sugars, water delivered, food produced.
A massively profound miracle.
Discarded.

Life goes on.

Voter Freud

Monday

Flood tide from a full “Hunter’s Moon” as mist softens contours and hues.
  • In France, he was always portrayed as “the man on the white horse.”  A strong leader who could single-handedly solve every problem.  A true father for the nation.  Our last election, for many, attempted to give us such a person.  All that it proved is that one does not have to be a drunk to be an incompetent, mean and abusive parent.
  • Modern citizens have an Oedipus complex, or maybe just a love/hate relationship with their governments.  As libertarians point out, most people want protective security from foreigners and from crime.  As liberals claim, most industrialized citizens expect guarantees of at least minimal food, clothing and shelter.  The rest is just details _ extremely contentious details.
  • Everyone hates to pay for it; and nobody likes officious nosy bureaucrats constantly nagging or worse.  The nanny state clearly ends with “what is not forbidden is mandatory.”   Is there any viable alternative?  We vote and hope and the people on white horses promise whatever is necessary to be elected.

Tuesday

Southdown Elementary is a typical cookie-cutter school hastily constructed for the baby boom of the 50’s.
  • Southdown elementary school serves as our voting place.  An easy walk for me, more difficult for others, and inconvenient when I was working.  It seems somehow medieval in these electronic times to have to show up anywhere in person and stand in line, be identified, and make a few marks on paper.  Yet, I imagine, it is still safer than the internet where it would be relatively easy to create a few million fake virtual citizens.
  • It brings to mind how very many of our traditions are so outdated as to be ridiculous _ just waiting for reform by the next revolution.  Criminal justice should have a special niche for true open and shut cases where public acts are committed observed by camera and confirmed by DNA _ eliminate all the months of stupidity and have the trial and sentencing the next week.  There are other practices too numerous to count. 
  • Anyway, I go, I stand in line, I vote, I feel virtuous enough.  And yet, I do wonder if all this works any more, or if we are just practicing an ancient superstitious religious rite hoping that it will make our universe or government any better than it might otherwise be.

Wednesday

Vibrant meadow colors glow under threatening skies at Caumsett, days before predicted hard frost.
  • What a relief it is …
  • Political phone calls, pamphlets, door visitors, and television ads have finally vanished.

Thursday

Lots of folks fishing off the Cold Spring Harbor docks for striped bass and bluefish, which venture near shore this time of year.
  • Regulations, like history, are usually written by the winners.  The winners these days are large corporations or organized guilds _ and no matter how well-intentioned any regulation might be initially, its inevitable outcome is to raise barriers to entry, promote oligopoly and monopoly, and help employ legions of lawyers who assure that only the wealthy can use it to advantage.
  • Furthermore, many regulations are passed by amateurs who are only concerned with public relations and winning elections.  Most of them are directed at abuses by a few, rewritten into unintelligibility by highly paid lobbyists and applied harshly to everyone.  As Anatole France noted: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”  A regulation by its very essence lacks common sense.  It is applied by the letter of the law, never by its intent.  A few old people sharing wine at a table in a park may not be the same as a gang of drunken teenagers ravaging the landscape, but both are equally forbidden by the same ordinance.
  • The wealthy hate taxes.  They need no parks because they have estates, no food or home inspections because they purchase impeccably, no schools because they use private tutors, no roads because their servants can find a way or use helicopters, no social safety net because they cover their own.  They want lots of police to keep the rabble under control, and strong courts to enforce the contracts which assure their wealth.  They are, as the saying goes, different from you and me.
  • Most of the population hates meddlesome bureaucrats, and the most hard working or entrepreneurial middle class hates them most of all.  

Friday

At least one patch of red in front of all the boats now being frantically landed and stored.
  • Politicians are not necessarily evil, but like everyone else in this supposedly meritocratic society they have a big chip on their shoulder from being cheated out of their rightful due.  In a position of power, they seek to guarantee their own financial and physical security, not only during their own terms, but for ages to come.
  • This is most apparent in recent developments in our town hall, where security is now similar to that at major airports.  God forbid an angry citizen should be able to get to the taxation clerks.  Spare no expense lest the bureaucracy should be confronted in their sacred duties.  

Saturday

Reeds already in winter mode as a hard frost sweeps into town on whitecap-driving north wind.
Political phone calls, political ads on television, political fliers flood the mail.
“I may be awful, but I’m not as bad as my opponent.”
“Don’t vote for her, she got a bad mark on her permanent record in 5th grade.”
“My opponent may not be evil incarnate, but he is trying hard.”
“If you are unhappy about anything, it’s all their fault.”
“The barbarians are at the gates and she wants to open the gates and serve them dinner.”
If only they were honest and said something like

“Hey, I can do this as well as anybody, since everybody is so bad.  Put me on the gravy train and I will be eternally grateful
Sunday

After the freeze, before the thaw, a remnant purple glow
Happy Days are here again
We’ll make America Great again
Society will be Great then
Happy days are here again
Everything starts perfect now
It’s stupid to go ask me how
Magic printed money now

Happy days are here again.

Season of the Witch

Monday

Witches and Ghosts flying fiercely in strong wind, miniature, unthreatening creatures except at night.

  • People react as strangely to prosperity as they do to adversity.  At the time of the Black Death, chains of people danced through the streets, while others played erotic games like those in Boccaccio.  Today there is a wave of brutal terror and horror films, rising interest in the day of the dead and its like being a jovial social holiday.
  • Perhaps it is more comforting to confront deep fears we can visualize _ death, uncontrollability of life, huge issues like global warming _ are too abstractly frightening to focus on for long.  In a time of increasing economic and social anxiety, there is a release in having a solid skeleton or evil clown coming at us.

Tuesday

Our neighborhood has not been too badly terrorized by oversize yard displays _ this one is kinda cute.
  • Not long ago, vast yard displays were reserved for Christmas.  But now lots of holidays have somebody trying to outdo the other, and Halloween is no exception.  When our boys were growing up, a single crudely carved pumpkin or homemade scarecrow (shirt and pants stuffed with leaves, painted old pillowcase as a head) was more than enough.  But now, Halloween has taken its rightful place in the land of the obese.  More pumpkins than a farm, spinning lights on houses, anatomically correct plastic skeletons and yards filled with spider webs and anything else anyone can market.
  • Yet at the same time, the oddly joyful evening has vanished.  Children would rather go to parties, like their parents.  Guardians are terrified of poisoned candy (or apples, I suppose.)  Elderly homeowners refuse to open their doors to uncredentialed strangers, especially odd-looking ones.  Youth-run households don’t answer the doorbell at all without an associated smart-phone text.
  • It is all inevitable, and a bit sad, and seems to represent something profound about how the American character has changed.  Thinking about that is scary indeed.

Wednesday

Hard to find color this year, even in usually reliable cemetery locations, as November begins.
  • Suffer not a witch to live ….
  • Unless, of course, she is on our side

Thursday

Finally enough color everywhere to resemble an impressionist landscape.
  • Halloween is now worldwide, mostly an extension of year-round horror and apocalyptic entertainment.  The common theme is good happy people destroyed by uncontrolled evil _ either all at once or one by one by some unstoppable force.
  • Those, of course, represent the true fears of our age.  Will life or happiness be extinguished by job loss, drunken car crash, cancer, terrorism, crime, or some universal catastrophe?  Or any of the other reiterated issues slammed to our attention by pundits and politicians and interest groups.
  • Some escape into addicted obliviousness.  For the rest there is only enforced focus and packaging those fears into something tangible like a movie or holiday.  Which, hopefully, we can laugh at and then ignore.

Friday

Almost too many beautiful scenes _ well, there always are but I tend to take them for granted.
  • When I was a young child, little was as scary as skittering leaves on dark eerily moonlight nights as suddenly cold winds moaned through the trees.  Forced to go out and encounter such was a lesson in controlling fear and overcoming it with brave costumes and the promise of sweet rewards.
  • As the child is in the man, I still get a shiver sometimes when I walk down the driveway on such evenings.  I carry within me the ghosts of all I have known, and the common fear of the grim reaper of death and the grey reapers of declining capacity.  I try to appreciate the beauties of the moment, but my deeper soul can discern closing foot prints.

Saturday

Tropical annuals in midsummer form, as daylight saving time ends.
“Hi, Karen, how was Halloween this ye
ar?” asks Mark as they meet while picking out broccoli at the market.
“Very good, thank you, and …”
“I went as a witch!” pipes up Lisa from down below.
“I wanted to be a witch,” her friend David mutters sullenly.  “They made me go as stupid Batman.”
“Boys can’t be witches,” states Lisa firmly.
“Oh, dear, one of those?” asks Karen.
“Yeah,” sighs David.  “No matter PC and all that, in this culture witches are traditionally women, after all.”
“It’s fiction at this point,” notes Karen.  “They’ll grow out of it soon enough.”

“One can only hope.”

Sunday

Goldenrod in its final stage graces the waterfront with fluff and spikes.
A witch with her broom flying high
Did unspeakable acts in the sky
When asked to explain
She said she felt no shame:

“A modern girl’s just gotta try.”

Squirrelly

Monday

Usually flaming tree at Mill Dam park shows subdued hues this year.
  • Squirrels race about to grab and bury plentiful nuts in the lawn.  Chipmunks and birds stuff themselves to put on fat reserves.  Trees are finally getting into the act, color breaks out overhead, even as the ground becomes more and more stiff dull brown.  This year, the transition seems more condensed than usual, a frantic week or two in what is otherwise an extended month of change.
  • Humans of course get into the act.  There are suddenly lots of chores which are pleasant enough while the weather is fine and slightly cool, but absolutely awful tasks once the deep cold, frost, November gales, and heavy rains set in.  Plant bulbs, clean yards, put away summer stuff.  Not to mention trying to squeeze in a few more moments pleasantly walking through woodlands, sitting on the beach, or just strolling around the neighborhood.

Tuesday

Boats are now coming in for winter storage, a constant and busy noise at these docks.
  • Our patio is almost its own microclimate:  shielded from the north winds by the house, facing south although partially shaded, flagstones to retain heat.  Joan tends it carefully every spring and summer, sadly watches its decline in autumn, and has only the feeding birds to remind her of its floral glories in warmer months.
  • The spring and fall are busy times.  In October, after things die back but before (hopefully) the onset of nasty weather, we have to bring in things like the umbrella and bistro set, drain the fountain.  Clear out dozens of pots and place them under an overhang to be sheltered from snow.  Clear flower beds of weeds and dying growth.  Plant bulbs for the spring.  Put hoses into the shed.  I get tired just listing things to do _ but the fact is that like many such things, thinking about them is harder than just getting them done. 

Wednesday

A few trees are fully denuded, but they seem almost out of place.
  • If you don’t like the weather, wait an hour.
  • Applicable this month _ if you do like the weather, seize each transitory moment.

Thursday

Last vestiges of warmth reflecting in calm waters.
  • I imagine by now hibernating creatures have their burrows well prepared.  Migratory birds are far along their allocated flyways.  Annuals have condensed into nothing but seeds.  Deciduous trees are about the make their annual statement to the landscape, announcing to one and all what season has come.
  • Indoors, we have some of the same rituals.  Put away the bathing suits and shorts.  Get out the gloves and long pants and wool caps and boots.  Check the status of the snow shovels.  At least locate the long underwear, flannel shirts, and heavy socks.  We may not hibernate, but our homes also reflect what is happening outside the windows.  

Friday

Chipmunks grab some last bites for dinner before their upcoming long nap.
  • Centuries ago, especially in Europe and its northern colonies, this was a time of feasting, if there were to be any feasting.  Beginning in September as some of the fruits and vegetables were so abundant that “use it or lose it” became true, through the shortest day to come, it was almost obligatory to add every extra pound of fat for warmth and to help through the lean times to follow.
  • Now we feast every day, year round, and never get into enforced starvation nor limitations.  Yet the feast days remain in autumn, always encouraging to eat more, as if we were woodchucks or chipmunks or bears.  We look at such creatures and rationalize “ah, we are just like them, so this extra weight is fine and natural.”  But we are not.

Saturday

Squirrels busily hide nuts by digging holes all over our lawn.  I can’t believe they find them later.
“Mommy, I don’t want to wear this jacket.”
“It’s cold, dear, you must or you will get a cold.”
“But it makes me sweat.  I don’t like it, I can’t run fast.”
“You will need to get used to it, this is just the start.  Look at the trees.”
“What about them, Mommy?”
“See how they are colored?  Soon all the leaves will fall down as they go to sleep.”
“But I still don’t want my jacket.  Can I at least leave it open?”

“Ok, dear,” she replies with a smiling sigh.

Sunday

Last leaves on the vines climbing evergreens add their subtle fall colors to the mix.
Violin’s autumn sobs are long
But not in this bright warmer year
I stroll about no jacket on
Untouched by normal season’s fear.
Uncertain world resists the rhymes
Contradicts each mournful song
I find it comforting to find

That poetry is sometimes wrong.

All Fall Down

Monday

As weather fronts arrive, differing heats of air, land, and sea produce lovely mists and fogs.
  • Dramatic changes in two weeks have heralded the entry into colder weather.  Almost overnight, literally overnight in some cases, leaves switched from green to gold.  Scarlet above became common.  Orange gleamed on hills.  And beneath was brown, more brown, and piles of brown.
  • Some seasons glide in gracefully, almost unnoticed.  That is unfortunately often the pattern in spring, when I keep expecting better weather than there could possibly be.  This autumn has held on to summer conditions way beyond normal.  Although much appreciated, that has left little time for transition to cold wind and bare branches.

Tuesday

Nuts make for treacherous footing especially if I don’t get them up before hidden by fallen leaves.
  • For weeks now, hickory nut bombs have been shattering on pavement or denting roofs and unwary cars underneath.  Many split open as they hit hard surfaces.  Squirrels rush about digging holes in gardens and lawns, frantically hiding larders in hopes of discovering them when the ground freezes.
  • Hickory is barely edible, if there is absolutely nothing else available.  But I find them a constant nuisance, and simply scoop them up in heavy pails to put out with the rest of the yard waste.  I suppose they compost with the leaves and branches at our town site, but sometimes it seems more like throwing out heavy wooden furniture and hoping it will decompose in any reasonable time. 

Wednesday

The deluge has begun _ just barely _ at the top of our driveway.
  • Ring around the rosie ….
  • Cheerful black death ditty proving humans can grimly laugh at anything.

Thursday

Milkweed seeds setting off to find a homestead for next year.
  • Colors are now sneaking onto the scene like unexpected guests.  Suddenly a patch of brilliant crimson, or a long splash of astounding gold will announce summer has in fact ended.  Meanwhile the greens get just a bit more drab, the weeds a lot more brittle and brown, and the butterflies and bees much less numerous.
  • Warm temperatures have made this October a great time to be outdoors, although some are grumbling that it remains far too humid and hot for their taste.  I love the fact that I have been able to sit on the water or on a park bench still without heavy jacket, soaking in sun for the last time before dark months and chill settle in for their long siege.

Friday

In spite of lots of greenery, this scene with grasses could only appear in October.
  • Dogwoods have faithfully recorded the passing of days.  Berries have turned bright red and fallen to the ground.  Leaves have gradually shown dark scarlet veins, then lost almost all their green hue, and are now crisping and falling quickly as rains settle in.  Soon their branches will again be bare against the purpling sky.
  • Dogwoods represent perhaps the most noble and consistent local ornamentals.  Their blossoms signal that true spring has arrived, their airy canopies provide light shade all summer, and their strange branching patterns are always fascinating when covered with new snowfall.  But in autumn, although hardly as spectacular as some maples, they change almost like clockwork, and always remind me of what is really going on in spite of the day to day weather.

Saturday

Barry hoists a heavy machine onto his back with a groan as sunbeams flicker horizontally.  “Boy, I’m glad this is the last one.  What a day.”
“Yeah, Peterson’s was nasty,” agrees Juan.  “That woman, she is some kind of evil.”
“Every damn leaf, even under the shrubs.”
“These people, they are truly crazy, I think.”
“No, Juan, no.  Poor people are crazy.  Rich people are eccentric.  Look around.  These are all rich people.”
“I wonder what they do to have so much?”
“So does everyone,” laughs Barry.  “So does everyone.”

With a tug and mutual roars only partially shielded by big ear protectors, they begin yet another Sisyphean task.

Sunday

Pokeweed berries shining but undisturbed, probably because of the extravagant banquet available everywhere else.
Once upon a time, I hear
You didn’t need a weatherman
For wind direction, far or near
A task that anybody can
But modern times we specialize
Need web-wide facts to get along
Don’t trust our mind, nor ears, nor eyes,
Our simple finger might be wrong.
Is it fall, do leaves come down?
From in this room I cannot know
Too busy to go look around

And tell which way the wind may blow.