This October Morning...

...was too lovely to keep me trapped in the dreary walls of my place of refuge.  I was NOT a prisoner, and freedom was inviting at me out to visit.  The crimsons, goldens, russets of the woods were drifting down softly around me, and crisp under my boots.  With the steady evergreens both clashing and and yet harmonizing, I was in a symphony of color set against azure and gray.  A canvas, and yet a score for the artist, the composer, laying down color, notes.  Colorful notes!

Crystal-golden tinkling twirls through warmish-cool breeze.  After sky breathes, maples were woodwinds and bells in a symphony of sound, color, scent, touch.  Sky-breath tastes like earth, maple, pine, dry pine and oak.  Sweet wine, I drink deeply of it, and I am warmed. 

Green-needles red pines crescendo as sky breathes, lifting and then lowering batons laden with needles and cones.  I have always enjoyed the bark of the red pine.  It is fun to peel off just a little of the orangy-gray layers like cleaving mica, not too much that I damage the tree, but just enough to see what is underneath.  What is underneath is more of the same cork-bark in abstract shapes like jig-saw puzzle pieces. 

As the crescendo RISES, falls, first LONG and LOUD, then soft...and almost silent, I look down.  A crimson/day-glow-red maple leaf among brown oak leaves tells me to pick up red.  I obey.  It was most lovely in a gaudy sort of way, like a princess among the commoners.  I feel compelled to drop the princess so she may be with her subjects where she belongs, so I do.

The canvas becomes blue, harshly dark and gray, now shifting this temporary palette of divine earth things.  All of it reminds me that change is NOT an option, but with the full assurance that once again the Creator of seasons and substance, Sustainer and Giver of life will not waste it, but keep the hope of another day like this, and BETTER days, even than this one, will be in the tomorrows ahead.

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter to the full day.  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but I am assured of the hope of fresh, new, sparkling tomorrows ahead, and I am at rest.  This is the climax for now.  This October morning. 

And, now, suddenly I find myself in April!