Friday, July 13, 2007

Twelve Moons of the Year. October 03.

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons. October 03.

"...as the dusk deepens the eight-hoot call of the barred owl is heard from the far hillside..then silence again, and one's own footsteps in the leaf-strewn road. ...farm dog barks in the distance and on the highway down the valley a truck growls into a lower gear for the long grade over the hilltop. The silent stars gleam beyond the thinning treetops." p. 291.

"...the starlit immensity of the autumn night." p. 291.

"October...isn't quite half-past autumn." p. 292.

"Look up and you see the clarity of autumn sky through the naked branches." p. 292.

"These are star nights. Another month and they will glitter as though polished by the frost." p. 293.

"There is eternity in those star patterns. Caesar saw those same stars in the same places as we see them, and so did the earliest pharaoh...and they will still be there 10,000 years from now." p. 294.

"...the color comes swirling down from the tree tops." p. 294.

"Day before yesterday the rising sun lit a vast bonfire in the maples, and at noon the light beneath them was golden. It rained. The maples stand half-naked against the clearing sky and the incredible wealth of beaten gold is on the ground beneath them." p. 294.

"Color persists, but except in the oaks, it is in tatters and remnants." p. 294.

"On the ground the fallen leaves are restless, skittering at the roadsides, drifting into the fence corners." p. 294.

"The crows attend to the big, important matters such as crow conventions and long, loud discussions...." p. 294.

"The jay can strut sitting still." p. 295.

"There are pumpkins aplenty, heaped at roadside stands, glowing in orange beauty on rural doorsteps, even lying like full moons in the fields." p. 295.

"Pumpkin pie...golden brown, rich as an old gold coin...savory as secret spice, autumn made manifest...smooth to the tongue...ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon...in a crust that melts in the mouth." p. 295.

No comments: