Vermont and the Splendor of Autumn Tints

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I usually use this space to describe a far away, exotic locale to which I have ventured. But not today. Today, I want to meditate on the joys of a warm October day in the forests of my home of Stowe, Vermont. I took advantage of this unseasonably warm day in the 70sF to stroll through the forest behind my house, and, in doing so, to luxuriate in the slanting light that filtered through the bombastic red sugar maple leaves and the holy yellows of the birches. These are the glorious autumn tints of which Thoreau wrote about. During the time I rambled through the crunching leaves and imbibed in the sweet smell of decay, I could forget for a while about our roiling contemporary discourse. I could heal myself in nature's balm. I could keep my eyes and ears wide open to see chipmunks and squirrels scampering through the forest as they prepared for winter's death grip.

And, of course, I also could not avoid thinking about mortality as my brief autumnal sojourn continued and I transitioned from the forest to a sun-splashed meadow. I have always lived in a geographic location where there are four distinct seasons. I don't think I could live in a place where the cycles of nature were not so clearly evident. But I do not necessarily view autumn as only a time of death and decay. Like Thoreau, I think we should celebrate the season as nature's guide to enjoying life before the inevitable autumns and winters arrive. To see nature closely and to appreciate its lesson is to see how the trees and leaves "teach us how to die." To truly appreciate nature also means to understand and accept our marginal place in the vast natural world. I'm not comfortable with the euphemisms we use for death, such as "passing away." No, human beings, like all organisms in the natural world, decay and die, like the leaves I trampled on today. To really live, you have to accept death. As Thoreau once wrote, the leaves "beautifully. . . go to their graves." As I walk over the crisp leaves that have fallen and see those that are now fluttering delicately to the ground, I understand that they are resigned to their fate; they drop contentedly and in their decay they nourish the next generation of the forest. We should all emulate this serenity that the leaves possess as we begin our slow fluttering dance into the ground. But before we reach the forest floor we make sure that our lives blazed like Indian-summer leaves in the tinted light of October.

To conclude, I leave you with this poem from my collection A Good Place to Wake Up: Vermont Poems:





A Good Place to Say Goodbye

I hope I die in winter.

I want to have seen the leaves

Change color one more time.

I want to smell the fragrance

Of the harvest.

I want to be dazzled

By the Monet blue

Of the autumn sky—

Clear and fierce.

I want to see the stars

Blaze above me in the chilled air.

Then I will be ready to

Return to the elements.

You will see me in the

Following autumn,

Floating in the

Warm October breeze.

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