Sunday, November 17, 2013

Sheafed in the Stream and Singing

November dishes out rain and dark clouds by the bucket and the barge, but for a few hours now and again, there is a windy blue clarity, and oh how such intervals are reflected in earth and sky.

Light at the trailing edge of the year always seems to intensify the deep inkiness of rivers and streams, kicks up the last reds and golds and russets of autumn as they flutter and ruffle under their blanket of icy water.

Such scenes remind me of a slim volume of autumn photography by the French master caricaturist and photographer Jean Mulatier, who called his creation simply "Autumn". I discovered a battered copy of the book in a remainder bin years ago and take it out in November to feast my eyes on a seasonal turning that is almost complete and all too brief in the greater scheme of things.

Jewels, the leaves in their stream are jewels, and they form a fine elemental brew of fallen oak, beech, hickory, elm and maple foliage, all caught up in a sheaf of wild creation.  Held fast, the vibrant scraps are singing their hearts out in a hidden woodland stream that only this creaky old hen and her canine companion seem to know about.  Listen, can you hear them?

7 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

Listening I hear a smile, a sigh. A burble too!

Mystic Meandering said...

Amazing whispers of brilliant light :)

Lynn said...

Ah yes, Cate . . . loud and clear.

Tabor said...

Gorgeous. Makes me think of a sequined scarf.

kerrdelune said...

Tabor, I so wish I could find a scarf like this, sequins or no sequins. These colors rock.

Wyld Oak said...

What vivid colors for mid-November! Lovely. Makes me want to write a song to sing to leaves under water...and on the ground, on the trees, falling through air, budding on branch tips, there would be no end. :)

Anonymous said...

Oh, how gorgeous! The sight and the song.