Fall in Oklahoma

“When the leaves turn and tumble to the ground to blanket the earth before the cold, we are amazed at their colorful beauty. Would I be so lovely in my autumn years”

c e hollis

The hummingbirds have heard the mysterious sound. They have seen a light or felt a rhythm that has told them to leave. They are gone like a shadow melts into the darkness. I am thrilled with the mystery of it all.

I love the cool wonderful autumn mornings when the first cold from the north calls for me to get out a sweater against it.

I love the flavor and smell of sweet apple cider, steaming in a mug or over ice in a tall drinking glass.

I love to hear the piercing call of a red-tailed hawk. It is like a cry of victory during a difficult battle. It is a beautiful screech that says the air is cool and the sky is open wide and blue. It is like the first cries of a newborn finding himself free from the womb.

I love the ways my entire world sounds different through open windows. And how the sheer curtains dance in and out of the space playing with the wind after being stifled by the heat through the summer. I love to smell the ripe scent of rain and leaves changing. I love to see the browning letters from summer as they skid and tumble to rest along the fences.

I love the Sweetgum trees that give each color a chance to show off with green, yellow, orange, red, and purple.

I love the contrast of the maples, oaks and elms against the green keepers–the pines and firs.The sun through the bright branches sings of change and feels lighthearted as I do in the color of it.

As I walk down beside the pond or the creek I find other sounds I love. I love the the babbling and the gurgling splash of the running water, and the plops and splats of turtles ending their sunbathing on the rocks and logs and slipping into the chilly water to hide. I love the sight of a kingfisher and the glimpse of him waiting on a tree branch blue on orange, watching for a fish for his supper.

I love the squatty gray/blue, tan, or white squatty pumpkins and the rotund orange ones with their still-green stems. I love the wafting smell of pumpkin bread steaming hot from the oven and spread with salted butter and sweet with nuts and raisins.

I love the crunchy sound my feet make in dry grass and browned leaves as I walk down the driveway to the mailbox. I love to see the mail carrier stop to put a letter in among the Christmas and the seed catalogues.

I love to watch the process of the pecans falling from the trees and being picked up and sorted into big bags. I love to think of all the good eating that will come of those pecans, how happy cooks will enjoy them and how Grandpa will sit on winter evenings to crack and shell them for pies, cakes, and frosted cinnamon rolls.

I love the harvest of the pear trees and the apples for baking pies and making applesauce. Seems I can smell apples on the days when breezes blow warm from the south–a second spring or an Indian summer.

I love the colors of the flowers of fall that try to match the trees. I love the zinnias, the sunflowers, and the chrysanthemums.

“We heard the sigh of the first autumnal wind, and even the water had acquired a grayer hue. The sumac, grape and the maple were already changed, and the milkweed had turned to a deep rich yellow.”

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Henry David Thoreau