Saturday, October 20, 2007

Soul Renewal and Robert Frost

Soul Renewal

It's the first sunny day in weeks. I've almost forgotten the color of a truly blue sky. I decide to make the 4 mile walk to the lake and back. Who knows when a day this nice will come again.

There's a million people out. We know and appreciate the rarity of a nice day, here in October in the Midwest. It's been so rainy lately; the sky lowering all the time. But somehow, no one is talking. It's like we all agree on the value of nothingness, of just being.

It's warm enough for shorts and t-shirts, another rarity in October.

The sound of the bike gears catching as the old man passes me, bright blue bike helmet and backpack on, wearing reflectors on his arms and legs even though it is the middle of a sunny day. He struggles his way up the hill. I am almost pacing him. Then the hill crests and his pace increases. He continues on without me, blazing a trail for me to follow.

Black ducks almost as far as I could see, taking a break for a rest and a drink before continuing their southward journey.

A sailboat catching the stiff breeze passes a fishing boat steaming out hopefully towards a possible walleye feast.

A stream giggling it's way towards the lake.

The woman wearing an iPod on one hip and her cell phone in the opposite ear, chattering away. The only possible conclusion is that she must be clinically insane.

The only sounds the wind as it rustles past my ears, through the leaves still clutching to the tree that is their summer home.

Scuffling through the fallen leaves to hear them crackle and crunch.

I'm almost home when I feel my shoulders drop into the place designed for them; I tend to forget that my habitual clench is not natural.

I wish this would last, but fall is inherently ephemeral. That may be the real reason for it's beauty.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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