Twelve Moons of the Year. October 02.

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

"Dogwood berries...in lacquer-red clusters, bright as holly at Christmas." p. 282.

Indian Summer: "There is agreement, however, that the season is characterized by clear, calm, mild days, a hazy horizon, and clear, chill nights." p. 285.

"Now come the quiet days of Indian summer and the quiet nights of starlight and leaf scuffle." p. 286.

"Spring sunshine is the awakener. Summer sunlight is the ripener. Winter sunlight is a token of rest, of the long sleep, the short day. But autumn sunlight is simply perfection of the day." p. 286.

"The sky is clean, clear, and the sun itself is benevolent, the autumn sun making an autumn day a special moment in time." p. 287.

"...nostalgic people sniff the evening air and remember forgotten autumns when leaf smoke was the incense of October evenings." p. 288.

"October: ...frosty mornings and Indian summer days...." p. 288.

"If you are middle-aged, don't allow yourself to smell leaf smoke or you will wonder what happened to those years." p. 288.

"In fall, goose-bone weather prophets...consulted the birds and beasts, weighed acorns, counted corn husks, measured the stripes on woolly caterpillars, and made their pronouncements about the coming winter." p. 289.

"The Weather Bureau may commune with highs and lows and jet streams and even with solar cycles, and it may run up its cautious forecasts on complex computers, but it doesn't seem to care what the owls are saying, or the geese, or the squirrels." p. 290.

"October: sere corn blades rattle in the roadside field." p. 290.

"October: one walks seemingly alone with the night and the universe."