The landscape turns brilliant, shudders, then settles in for a rest. Autumn is here.
In a time of covid and seclusion, affection for our surroundings can be dulled by familiarity. No stretch of meadow seems inviting, no carpet of prairie is miraculous, no sunset enchanting, no moon a pearl. All seem swathed in a commonness.
Enter Autumn, a moment for rediscovery and reunion. Autumn carries an expectation, as though we are meeting an old friend who has been away, who is perpetually busy with no time for idle talk. He has agreed to meet us at the terminal for coffee and a quick chat before his plane leaves. We are masked, across a table.
You look well, we tell Autumn, admiring our friend’s complexion, his cool and relaxed spirit, the warmth of his sun.
Compared to what? he asks.
And without letting us answer he admits that his Aunt Summer, had overstayed, blowing out with a tantrum. She had been uncooperative and cranky, dumped most of her rain in July, then left us fairly parched into November. Auntie had rustled about for weeks without so much as a long heat wave. Her visit did seem to stretch on, and it left everyone feeling as though they had been in a stagnant tomb for months. There were times – in November, even! – when I thought she’d never leave, our friend said.
Late as I am, he continued, people seem relieved to have me and worry about my departure. They have never accepted my schedule which, after all that late work in New England, allows me only a stopover here. It’s been that way since the climate curdled, and I can only stay a moment. There is just enough time to help things along, to get things in order before you-know-who starts throwing his weight around. He blew in last month with a bag of frozen wind, then left for Ellsworth County to reload his tattered satchel. We never know when he’ll show up again with his snow and ice mists and doom-sprinkled skies, but when he does it’s often in the dead of night, riding an Alberta Clipper.
Must you always be looking at the clock? we say, ordering more coffee. Beyond the tarmac the woods blush red and orange, alive with the scuttle of tenants. It is a soft morning, vapors rising through the trees, pink clouds folded against a pale sky.
Autumn, ignoring us, went on. I like to start each day with a surprise, he said. Why, just the other morning I overslept and had only enough time to throw a scarlet blush across the east before first light. It was color I had left over from the day before, when I did the sugar maples. There wasn’t time to mix anything else. It turned out pretty well, don’t you think? Later that evening I threw in some gold from the cottonwoods and a hint of russet from the Flint Hills. It made quite a sunset.
And what of the moon lately? we asked.
Like it? said Autumn, reaching for the cream and sugar.
The trick is in the timing, he said. By five o’clock or so I have the sun down against the tableland beyond the central hills. As its brilliance fades, the light is washed against all the dome above. In the east the sky softens and is almost moist, like felt in a fine mist.
Against this, Autumn continued, I bring on a plump moon, a glorious, yawning opalescent moon. It lifts slowly in a magnificence that announces dusk, in an orbit whose ellipse away from us, gives it the appearance of shrinking with night’s advance.
Timing is everything, said our friend. The arrival and departure of color, the press of darkness against light, a general slowing of rhythms – all seem to excite the ambition to tidy up and fasten things down before everything freezes and is still.
Autumn glanced at the clock and declined more coffee. A fellow must keep an eye first on the day at hand, he said. The best I can do is manage the schedule I’ve been given, remember my color charts and watch the thermostat. Then I hope for a respectable show, one that keeps promise alive and all living things within the pull of gravity.
We couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Autumn smiled and patted the table and stood, extending an elbow for a bump. It was good to see you again, he said. He would be leaving now, and it would do us no good to ask him to stay. It would throw off his timing.
***
