I know it’s a ‘first world problem’, yet I grieve the passing of a season, feeling its loss even before it’s gone. This year was no exception with the loss of exquisite colours. After all these years I still grieve, even though my experience is that I embrace the beauty of the new season and find much to marvel at. In November, when the land is exposed, it astonishes me when I notice what is ordinary and hidden during the lush summer months. I’m captured by the shape of the landscape, the colours of rocks, the alive greenness of the ferns poking up amongst brown leaves, and the delightful sound of rustling leaves. In November I’m able to experience an intimate relationship with the land. This reminds me of Mary Oliver’s poem, Mindful, where she says, “every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight”.
Her poem is below following the photos.
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
- fromWhy I Wake Early, by Mary Oliver
