Autumn Passing

Autumn Passing

-1-

Were it time we would discuss the sadness of the failing light, of the wind which cools the evening, of the silent hope of wild flowers, we would discuss these things, allow the meditations which arise to have their moment... were it time.


But who was it said such quiet intimations are any the less or any the more than the colder intentions of a purposeful mind? And who supposes that he who sifts meaning from these quiet moments, from the whispering wind, from the day gathered in reflection, draws anymore than comfort and self-deception.


Even the enduring hills will in time be worn to plain, and the forest we condescend to leave will fall beneath the ice of ages yet to come. We were a flicker in the light, our anxious sorrows less than a hesitation or a care, and as we rested in ourselves we were nothing. Although we felt our losses keenly, they also were nothing.


The rain which falls upon the meadows, the mists obscuring farther hills, the rills that run along the paths through overhanging cherry wild; the wind which runs through copper ferns, through tawny grass, through winterberry and alder bush; here and there the pines which sigh their ease but shatter in distress...


These... the dogs which run through hillside weeds; the pheasant startled from its hidden rest; the teeming birds which fly on down the valley, south...


What was lost has drifted with the currents too far, away, and time extracts its certain price... no more.

-2-

The winds have fallen, the day has slipped away as all they do before us. There is little left but the haunting echo of a memory, of the leaves which rattle about us, the rush of air through brittle grasses by the lake, the sullen autumn sky, the water babbling, bubbling, trickling beneath us, subterranean, rivulets and streams sprung from nowhere, from nowhere sprung, the land ridding itself of this latest extravagance.


The fallen leaves are filigreed with frost and rattle brittle about our passing feet in tones of brown and gold and orange and red. At the base of a large rock twisted branches angle and turn in the shadow of an hour, twisting and turning, angling towards the last falling light of an autumn's afternoon.


There is nothing to be said of it. There is no more here than meets the eye, nor should there be. The moment in its fullness is already more than we can comprehend or bear. Its wondrous luminescence if only we could see it.


But when it all gets to be a distraction imposed upon us by some necessity, despairing, imprisoned in the requirement of days... to work to earn, to eat, to be warm, to be safe and far from pain...


But to hold the moment in its fullness, to hold the moment in its fullness and let it pass...


We were made for distraction, we are born to it, our minds are bent to competence, to labour and care, and the fleeting passage of time, and the using of ourselves thoughtlessly up.


Time passes us by and hurries on to the next, and the next. Were it not so we could not be, nor our fleeting lives unfold.

-3-

Drifting in the diminished light and dying, the evening clouds are melancholy and unattainable. I reach to touch the sky, to fly, to rise the valley walls and crest the ridges like the hawks.


And if these great hawks which glide through streams of air or follow patiently the river life below, which dive upon their prey and carry them dripping many miles to some hidden nest in the shadows of the forest behind us... if these should disappear from sight, now, just now, gone... no me, no mind, all the images vain, all the suppositions with which we have struggled, for which we have lived, now, just now, gone...


Time is the very fabric of the mind upon which beings dance and play like a trick of the light.


Can the osprey which hangs over the waters, can I below who watch with thoughts of garden and home, of dog and friends, of grasses and the sparrows who call from the bush, of gravel underfoot, and the paths by which we return, the fireweed that blooms in August along the bank and along the river... can the osprey which hangs over the water and I survive the perfect freedom of purest emptiness?


Time is the very fabric of the mind ...


In time that perfect freedom may fashion another vanity from its emptiness and other great hawks glide through such streams of air as seem fitting at the time.


... upon which beings dance and play like a trick of the light.

-4-

The sound of these passing days: the distant thunder now approaching, now receding; the ever-present chatter; the frantic turmoil of local ambitions that announce themselves in inexplicable pursuits; the kindnesses lost in reason and sense, and the kindness not lost, though passing and ineffective.


What is it if I see the hawk upon the blue, or come to watch the spring of ravens? What is it if I hear the gossip of geese in their enthusiasm for the south, and then the north still distant, or watch the smaller brants tear seaweed among the rocks?


My sorrow is as inextinguishable as hope. I have invented dawn to endure the endless night.


It ravels and unravels, it spins like a top in its coming and going. Out of the dissolution of old beings new mysteries are born. From old sorrows spring new joy; from old joy new sorrows.

-5-

Subtler thoughts find words, and words find other words. To undetermined depths do intimations descend, barely sensed. One listens carefully and hears nothing, and hearing nothing suspects more than can be said.


Oh, but there are spirits about, and not of the dead, of the living. Of usage and intention. Of need and comfort, struggle and rest. Of love.


The gold-or-is-it-orange glow of day's last light from the sun that has sunk below the silhouette of our northern hills now some time ago; the half of a moon in the still blue sky to the south, now darkening, caught among the branches of elm and maple, red maple; this autumn night, this one, which shall never be repeated in living memory, slipping away in a silence that I happily mistake for enthusiasm or love.


What are these? They are the words of a dead man to which I listen: "Life passes by like the rustling of wind in the trees, like the procession of time unannounced... as does death."

-6-

If words are all we have and all we have are words, if nothing but our dreams protects us from our days and nothing but our days give hope to all our dreams, what shall we have for strength when the dross falls from our eyes? What shall we have for comfort when the soft wind blows alone?


This is the place I sit, here amidst the wildflowers: the blue of chicory, the brilliant reds and yellows of hawkweed, swaths of purple through the meadow, the delicate white of queen anne's lace. A glimpse of the river which runs through the valley below.


Even on such an afternoon as this the wind whispers through the grass. The great birds soar overhead, and the lesser sing from the woods close by. I draw the wind about me and whisper to it small truths I have imagined for myself.


A dance in the wind above me, hovering with vigour and intensity, peering sharply into the grasses below, dancing his dance on the wind, the kestrel, the sparrow hawk. Rufous feathered, keen of eye, fierce and unrelenting.


I watch the great heron as he visits first this pond, then that, somehow not ungainly despite his size, creature of great patience and unexpected grace. He wades slowly through the shallows at the edge of the pond. He stops. He stands for the longest time like a Buddhist rapt in meditation. He strikes. Some small frog or the other has been freed from the bonds of earthly desire.


What is it that the wind whispers as it rises to the blue of this born-again summer afternoon, as it winds itself through the wisps of summer cloud oh so far above me?


Birds sweep across the meadow and land in the poplars at the edge of the wood: the plaintive cry of goldfinches who find softness and nurture in the thistles that grow here.


It is as if the moment revealed a spirit, as if the spirit moved here and there across the meadow and settled just so, but for a moment, and was off again in the wind, just so.


I contemplate a vast web of purposes and intentions, each fibre reaching out tenuously or tenaciously so far into the surrounding woof and warp as ones' neighbours allow. Each coming and going is a small thing seen alone and from this distance, but taken together...


If they were not there already, I would will these spirits back into the wind. And so it is. I wrap this wind about me.

-7-

In silence the days unwind, in silence the procession of days, in silence the commerce of days, inescapable delusion, mindless harmonium. I despair of ever talking again... empty words, empty words everywhere.


Against your measure the world has been emptied of merit, is empty.


Days and days: grey the sky and white the land. Days and days: chill the air and cold the wind.


It is not a paradox, merely a question unanswered. It is not a mystery, merely a persistent error you have brought upon yourself and will not let go. So fearful of distraction only to suspect at last: there is nothing to be distracted from but what you would not allow.


I have fathomed my despair with such intensity and for so long, days upon days, since I was young and now am old, that I have found at its heart nothing but what would have been expected... nothing.


Nothing... against which one consolation remains, that every moment is vital in itself and then mercifully is gone.


My life is but a leaf blown in the wind which shatters and is forgotten.


But oh, what a wind!


As tawny as the grass that falls beneath these autumn winds, as golden is the fallen, fled from the birch along the meadow path...


Without resistance, in utter silence, with humility unimaginable to sentient creatures, unannounced, it fulfills itself.

-8-

As I walk this early morning path I notice the little creek that idles through the alder, leafless, grown stark; the little creek that wanders aimlessly between hummocks of grass bent low with reverence for the wind and weight of time, dusted with snow; the little creek that shows the first thin glazing of an evening's frost, speaks of a deeper cold, announces the first days of winter but a few steps ahead.


I say nothing. I walk on by.


I have seen the morning sun like an errant child running joyfully across the fields, vanquishing shadows from our northern hill, flushing ravens from the heights, sending them soaring into the radiant clouds, broadcasting their joy in flight, in light.


I have seen that self same child grown old, retire in its quiet splendor at end of day, satisfied with its accomplishments, knowing that certain peace in the dignity of its decline, content with night.


I have been given enough of time and more, and my wisdom lies in loving the world I shall leave, and my dignity lies in not asking more of it.