'Beware the Autumn People'

Lindsay and I are in constant conversation about which season we love the most. Granted, there are a moments where we talk about Bills or Babies, but mostly we're draped about the house, discussing whether the weather of endless evenings in summer is better than bustling brisk of Christmas, or if it can compare with the first sweet breath of fresh dirt in Spring, which rivals the crisp burnt reminder of Autumns past.

Pretty much, Lindsay loves Summer first for its chlorine-filled memories and sand-filled futures, then Fall for its new school year ('cause she's smart) and the fashion that comes with ('cause she's pretty).

I have to say that, year after year, I am thoroughly convinced by whichever pageant is presenting itself at the moment. So this year...Today...I am fully for Fall.

{Our Dog on Our Porch}

{The Plants* on the Porch}

{Syd in a Patch of Pumpkins}



{Patch in a Patch of Pumpkins...and Linds}

Our dear friends Suzie and Syd called us up and wanted to head upstate and see the country, so we did and it was a Autumn Wonderland. We picked up some fall sundries and enjoyed good company. It was golden and hazy, but it was covering a dark truth. After all, the turning of fall is only ever about one thing:

"Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had the strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that's burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead -- And wasn't it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time ... ?"

Deep in the back of your throat it waits for its annual subsiding. The one night when creaking gates bang open and shatter on dead rock walls giving way to shadowy characters with wicked motives.

"Mr. Dark nodded, pleased. "What's your name, boy?"

Don't tell him! thought Will, and stopped.
Why not? he wondered, why?

Jim's lips hardly twitched. "Simon," he said.

He smiled to show it was a lie.

Mr. Dark smiled to show he knew it."

There are those whose breath aches for the crack of treaded leaves, the race of whipped wind 'round a broken tomb stone, the shallow gasp of black night as it settles on your chest.

"…Beware the autumn people...For some, autumn comes early, stays late, through life, where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ’s birth there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring or revivifying summer.
For these beings, fall is the only normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond.
Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No, the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks through their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars.
They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles—breaks.
Such are the autumn people. Beware of them."

We are they. The Autumn People. So then, are you, our closest and finest friends. And to solidify our kinship...

a gift:

As you very probably know, the quotes above are from this, the finest fall book ever penned. I love to read this book every fall. It has the perfect mix of Summer Ending, Growing Up, a Haunting Pandemonium Shadow Show, and Trains...

"Those trains and their grieving sounds were lost forever between stations, not remembering where they had been, not guessing where they might go, exhaling their last pale breaths over the horizon, gone. So it was with all trains, ever."

We invite you to join our Harvest tradition and curl up in this book. Don't have a copy? We'll give you this one. You know the drill: post a comment about your very favorite part of this season and, on Thursday the 16th, we'll draw a winner and send you a box of fall, New England Style.


Well, go on...

~P

{I took every picture used in this post, even the book one... I know, right?!}

{Oh wait...not the one I'm in, Suzie took that.}

{Better Stacy?}

*That green thing is called a Goose Gourd; at least, that's what the Lady on the Farm said.