HOMAGE TO FALL:: POST ONE

CEMETERY ROAD

OLD RED MAPLE

OHIO BUCKEYE

NEIGHBOR'S WOODSHED

PIKE'S CREEK VALLEY

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  Wind NW, calm at present.  The sky is cloudy after last night's rain, which left .3" in the glass.  The humidity is still 89%, the barometer rising, now at 30.23".  High today around 50, then warming during the week, with mixed skies and no rain predicted until next Saturday PM.
   We weren't sure whether this fall would be too wet, or too mild, for the best color.  It turns out it is a beautiful fall and will be at its peak for a while unless we get high winds and pelting rain.  I will spend a few days doing homage, posting the beauty of this  2017 Bayfield fall.

 “Merry Autumn” 

It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
    About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
    Because the year is dying.

Such principles are most absurd,—
    I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
    To make a solemn autumn.

In solemn times, when grief holds sway
    With countenance distressing,
You’ll note the more of black and gray
    Will then be used in dressing.

Now purple tints are all around;
    The sky is blue and mellow;
And e’en the grasses turn the ground
    From modest green to yellow.

The seed burs all with laughter crack
    On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
    Are all decked out in crimson.

A butterfly goes winging by;
    A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
    Is bubbling o’er with laughter.

The ripples wimple on the rills,
    Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
    And laughs among the grasses.

The earth is just so full of fun
    It really can’t contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
    The heavens seem to rain it.

Don’t talk to me of solemn days
    In autumn’s time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
    And these grow slant and slender.

Why, it’s the climax of the year,—
    The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
    Just melts into thanksgiving.

by Paul Laurence  Dunbar

Note: Dunbar was a nationally acclaimed black poet and close friend of Orville and Wilbur Wright