We have traveled from September 11, 2001. The beauty of this morning, the crisp, blue and green, I still remember the exact same brilliance to that morning eleven years ago. The disbelief can still take my breath away, and stop me in my tracks, eleven years later. The pain remains...the memories remain...
The Voice of Autumn
"The owl has hooted in the evening darkness. The voice of Autumn has echoed across the valley. There is no mistaking it now, for although the green world is still green, it has the gleam of dogwood berries turned scarlet and the sine of goldenrod in the fence corners and the glow of little white asters on the meadow. There is the cider smell of windfall applies in the orchard and the wine tang in the vineyard. You can close your eyes and know what is taking place.
Ripeness is fulfillment, and it comes not at the peak of Summer. It comes when the season begins to ease down the long hill toward Winter and ice, when the days shorten and the stars of night begin to gleam in longer darkness. Ripeness is a summation, of long, hot days and simmering sun and warm rain and the flash of lightning across the Summer sky. It is the beauty of blossom brought to the succulence of fruit, the soft green of new stem toughened to the firm fiber of the reaching twig, the winged seed of the maple now rooted at the grass roots and finding sustenance in the soil. Ripeness is September, warm at midday, chill at dusk and covered with cool dampness at dawn.
The change is more than a matter of sunlight and day length, for there is a rhythm in all growing things, a rest and a resurgence. The seasons belong to that rhythm, as do the day and the night. But so does the apple, and so do the goldenrod and the asters. The peak is past. The wave of the great rhythm now begins to ebb, and the cricket sings, the owl hoots, the crows call querulously. You can hear Autumn from any hillside." (Sept. 9-Sundial of the Seasons-Hal Borland)
