PEN ART AND THIS IS FALL

AND THIS IS FALL

(Writing and photography by 

Sheila Gail Landgraf)

"It is the summer's great last heat, 
It is the fall's first chill:
They meet."  
(Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt)

This old favorite verse of poetry reminds me that we are officially beginning the  Fall Season.   This lovely season always feels just a bit too short.  

I never grow tired of enjoying the time and every day feels like a fresh new gift from God. 

 Fall is my favorite season. 

The Irish love to say “Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor.”  

It is so true; one day you are standing in the heat of summer, and a few days later you begin to hear the snapping and cracking of the trees as they adjust to the cold and say hello to autumn.   You know it will not be long before “the frost is on the pumpkin.”   

Even the rain changes to a soaking kind of wet instead of a blowing pounding kind of wet.  Autumn rains can be soothing falling on the rooftops at night.  

You begin to smell smoke from wood stoves and fireplaces burning off the chill of their owner's houses.  

The sky becomes busier with the sights and sounds of birds migrating to a warmer place for the winter.  If you live in one spot long enough you will come to recognize the birds that have fall flight patterns through your area.  They light in ponds to rest and you know it is a sign of Fall.  So is the apple harvest, with its lovely rolling hillsides full of apple crates just brimming over with luscious fruit.        

It seems as if the trees enjoy taking turns changing their colors.  

The poplars like to go first, then the maples, then the others follow suit until they all stand vividly together, as if dressed for some elaborate banquet that we all have suddenly stumbled upon.  They  wave and invite us to their dance and we feel so honored to be their guest.  

Delicious fall recipes are spread on tables across the land, using the bountiful pumpkins, nuts, maple sugar and apples.  It is a feast for the table and a feast for the eyes as well.  Everything has a festive flavor.

Local fall customs come out to play.  Football teams and small town festivals and carnivals.  

Do you have a favorite thing about Fall that you find yourself doing or seeing or looking forward to that let’s you know for sure the season has truly arrived in your heart as well as the calendar?  

My list is full of so many things; I doubt I could even name them all.  

The fall foliage color tops my list of favorite things. My camera will get no rest during this season.  Fall is heaven to a photographer.  I love capturing the color and I love capturing the festive community events.  Each festival seems to bring a new work of art, a fresh way to recognize the beauty of the local people against the landscapes they call "home."  

My artistic soul is captured by the way the sun shines this time of the year. Technically this is called the Autumnal Equinox, but I would rather have the same 'kindred spirit' as Anne Shirley from Ann of Green Gables and make up a much better name.  I want to label this lovely autumn sunshine “The Dance of The Sun Through A Swirling Pool of Colors.”   Even those words seem not justified by the actual beauty presented.  

The word equinox comes from the Latin words “equal night.”  I like to turn that definition toward the positive in my mind and think of this season as a time of “equal light.”  At any rate, the slanted sun crosses the celestial equator and the temperatures begin to drop.  Slowly the days start to get shorter than the nights, but the hours of slanted sun daylight that we do have to enjoy are dazzling with vivid and brilliant colors and delightfully crisp air.   This all tends to make the earlier evenings seem more peaceful and relaxing.  

Fall is especially beautiful in the South as the sprawling mountainous landscapes silently explode with red, yellow and orange flames.  The leaves begin to jump off the trees and from your car windows you see people raking their yards.  Children take turns jumping into the leaf piles, until their parents take note and begin to teach them how to rake too.  

Football season totally occupies the locals of the land, and college towns create and cater to all types of personalities that best present their beloved teams.   Enthusiasm runs rampant.  Whole towns are dressed in team colors on certain days.   People bring out their sweaters and hoodies and warm socks.  They roast marshmallows and tail-gate and carve pumpkins and fill vases with flowers of rust, yellow, purple and orange.  Door fronts across the nation become much friendlier.  Friendly scarecrows appear everywhere.  Yards are full of busy squirrels scampering around trying to hurry up and finish storing their food for the winter.  If you simply watch the behavior of the animals and the plants, you will know that Fall is in progress.

Poetic love songs tend to happen during this season more than other seasons.  Tired poets are refreshed and inspired again.   Artists bring their canvases out of storage, to capture the beauty of the moments that will quickly fade and never be again.  Chefs inventing new soups are glad of the chance to turn from the challenging meals of summer to the more creative yet traditional meals of Fall.  School children suddenly seem to be on display everywhere you go, with their books and lunch pails and hair ribbons and flannel shirts.  Yellow buses bring traffic to a creeping halt as if to say “step aside, this is our season.”   Goblins and ghouls roam the streets evidently looking for food and are soon favored with sweet sticky candy apples and candy corn and chocolate. 

It is a time of great thankfulness and a time to share the bounty of the gifts that God grants to us in abundance.  It is a time for families to gather together and share the harvest that comes from loving one another.

The magic is everywhere. 

This is Fall.