Autumn: Pictures and Poetry

“What time we waste, wasting time.”  ~ Charles Wright

Hmmm…I prefer to think of it as soaking up the atmosphere, being in the moment, meditating on — whatever.

My yard is starting to show its autumn colors and the critters are enjoying these gorgeous sunny days.

Four baby squirrels were born late in the season and this one is still small enough to squeeze his entire body inside the bird feeder.  One day last week we had heavy rains and this little guy sat inside and munched away without getting a hair wet.  (If you want to see the cute face up close, double click on the photo.)

Squirrel in a bird feeder...

“Each year a memory of hazelnuts rolls, nut by nut, into/the den of the prince with the merry tail,/and the tree forgets.” ~ Saleem Barakat

The herb garden is blooming…

Pineapple sage in bloom

Purple blossoms of flowering basil

“South winds jostle them,/Bumblebees come,/Hover, hesitate,/Drink, and are gone.” ~ Emily Dickinson

Bluejay

Every morning I whistle for the bluejays and they come for peanuts.  It’s amusing to watch them (with binoculars).  A bird will carry the peanut to a tree branch, hold it tightly between his feet, and peck until he cracks the shell.  Then he throws back his head and swallows the peanut, like a person taking a pill.

We have a little mole, too, who burrows beneath the mulch, creating a network of tunnels that intersect here and there and end beneath the bird feeders.  Occasionally, we see the mole come to his doorway and grab a seed or two before scurrying back underground.  I imagine he has a stockpile somewhere.

The chipmunks must have massive stockpiles…

Chipmunk scavenging for birdseed

This little fellow has worked hard the past few days filling his cheeks with seeds and taking them back to his den again and again.

Dogwood leaves turning...

“Each tree/has a thousand golden hands,/soon they will fall around you.” ~ Lisel Mueller

“Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing./Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.” ~ Pablo Neruda

The prettiest burst of color in my yard the past couple of weeks has come from the late-blooming flowers — huge crysanthemums, a few green and purple blossoms on the hydrangea, a flurry of purple-pink coneflowers, and the last rose of summer.

tons of blooms

hydrangea:nothing left of the spring time blue...but still pretty

Coneflowers spread like weeds...but so pretty!

one rose left on the bush

“It was in between seasons,/after the thin twitter of late autumn/but before the icy authority of winter…” ~ Billy Collins

Hold on to the “thin twitter of late autumn” and squeeze out every ounce of pleasure in the colors and the critters and the sunshiny days!

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