Morning Glory

There is something I love besides my new (used) cat, you know:  autumn.  Who could not?  (Click to enlarge.)

It's been an unusually warm one, hot and humid but mostly rainless on the back of the second most rainless August in recorded history of this area.  So it hasn't really felt like fall, not 'til a couple of days ago when it cooled off and started raining properly.

With utter disregard for the temperature, and without any obvious cessation of summer in the offing but for some new colors here and there, it started getting autumn-pretty in these parts in earnest about a week ago.  I noticed it when I stopped at Nashoba Brook Bakery after dropping off the car at the mechanic's early last Thursday.  The view off the bakery balcony, an outdoor eating area which is also part of a walking route around and over Nashoba Brook, was more than pretty, though.  Beautiful, really.  Gorgeous in the sumptuous way of brocades and tapestries.  (Click to enlarge.)

As I stood at the railing, I tried to capture for you what I saw, the Massachusetts version of three different beloved artists' work come to life.  I saw Klimt in the shower of gold those tree trunk-shrouding vines created.  I saw Monet, of course, in the arched bridge.  And there was my old friend Georgia O'Keeffe in bloom and entwined as blue morning glories on the black railing.  (Click to enlarge.)

It was a grey day, but it was a warm day, grey enough to make the nascent autumn hues pop against all that neutrality, warm enough to draw me sandal-clad along the top of the wall beside the brook to see what I might see.  I saw a heron, close enough to disturb his hunt for breakfast if I chose, but why would I do that?   (Click to enlarge.)

Of course I was drawn to the bridge; how could I not be?  (Click to enlarge.)

And of course I looked out from the bridge to see the silken early crimson leaves already softly carpeting the banks of  the brook with one or two small adventurous ones slipping out onto the glassy water.  Why else climb so high? (Click to enlarge.)

I left the bridge and walked through the little "industrial" section of West Concord.  There was the blacksmith's shop.  (Click to enlarge.)

There by the quiet photographer's studio was another remnant of summer, flourishing defiantly as though today would be no different than yesterday, fragile anyway as a silent prayer against that warm, dark sky.  (Click to enlarge.)

And then I turned a corner and found myself back in opulence.  (Click to enlarge.)

I rode the commuter train back one stop to my part of Concord bemused by all these confused seasonal and unseasonal riches, with that feeling in my scalp and temples that you get when someone massages your head or plays with your hair.  When I left the train, I didn't go straight home, but walked around the block, to the bank and up the neighboring streets, partly to do business, partly trolling for images.  I came to the crossing and spotted this from across the rails.  I like to think rodent or avian guests at my house just across the street planted it with the seeds of my love for them.  So late in the season, it's a truck stop for the summer's last bees.    (Click to enlarge.)

There were lots of tough branches in my way as I clambered up the embankment to photograph that sunflower, and one of them caught my prosthetic foot and tripped me.  Down in the dirt, the asphalt, gravel, tar and refuse, I saw another gift.  (Click to enlarge.)

There is no glory like that of a summer morning.  There is no glory like that of an autumn morning.  When the two meet in passing on the very same morning, they embrace openly, and generously, casting gifts everywhere.

Comments

[Evan]

The sunflower grew amidst gravel ballast! I am used to seeing stingier plants down there. I know by our family home in Michigan I see exclusively horsetail (the primitive non seeded linear thing).

I copied your sunflower image. Hope you don't mind if I use it sometime in lecture. we use Power Point on a projector 4 days a week here.

[Sara]

Naw; go for it.

Now I'm sad about the bees. See, there were actually three of them when I walked up to take that picture, but one of them got scared off by my hulking, lurching presence.

Still, two are better than none, right? :)