Songs in a Different Key

Leaves crunching underfoot, frost crystals limning fences, blowsy plumes of grasses rattling like sabres, leaf strewn puddles on the trail—all are plangent leitmotifs in the windy musical work that is late autumn. At this time of the year, the woodland is an Aeolian harp, a vast musical instrument that only the wind can play.

The landscape is settling slowly into the subdued tints of early winter: bronzes, creams, beiges and silvery greys, small splashes of winey red, burgundy, russet, here and there touches of a deep inky blue almost iridescent in its sheen and intensity.

On our morning walks, frost forms sugary drifts on old wood along our path, dusts ferns and outlines fallen leaves almost transparent in their lacy textures. An owl's artfully barred feather lies in thin sunlight under the fragrant cedars down by the spring and seems to be giving off a graceful, pearly light of its own. The weedy residents of forest, field and fen cavort in fringed and tasseled hats.

One needs another lens and tuning for early winter, a different sort of vision, songs in a different key. The senses perform a seasonal shift of their own, moving from bright summer happenings toward other motifs and musics in the landscape, things smaller, quieter and more muted. For all their stillness and subdued appearance, the natural elements we encounter in our rambles are complete within themselves, and they are beautiful, even when they are cold and wet and tattered. One has to look and listen more closely to bear witness to the earth's indwelling grace in winter.

There is light in the world, even in these dark times, and I have to remember that. My camera and lens never forget, and out in the woods, they drink in November's silvery light like nectar. I am thankful that they do. They remind me at every turning along on the trail—we are made of star stuff. We live in a sea of light.