Monday, July 16, 2007

Twelve Moons of the Year. November 01.

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons.

"November is simply that interval between colorful October and dark December." p. 300.

"The owls are the voices of November nights...a chilly sound, a dark and frosty sound that hints of ice and snow...a fireside sound, one that goes with wood smoke and sheltered evenings." p. 301.

"November...winds that rattle the latch." p. 310.

"November brings long, chill nights of glittering stars and restless, whispery leaves." p. 302.

"November...a world reduced to elemental patterns." p. 302.

"On the twigs where the skittering leaves were live and green in June and July, buds are already set and visible, promise of next April and May and green again." p. 303.

"Cattails hold high their brown candles...." p. 303.

"Beaver Moon: By November's time of full moon the beavers, wise in the ways of the seasons, were ready for winter. Dams were sound, their ponds were full, their houses snug and well supplied with food; and any countryman with half the sense of a beaver had his own establishment similarly prepared." p. 304.

"The oaks are deliberate trees, slow to leaf out in the spring, slow of growth, slow to color in the fall, and even reluctant to shed their outworn leaves which sometimes cling to the branches until new leaves burst from the buds in the spring." p. 305.

No comments: