Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile. –William Cullen Bryant, poet, journalist, editor and a driving force behind New York’s Central Park
Autumn! A sentence unto itself, and a favorite time of year. It is the proper placing of all of summer’s dalliances. Wherever they may have occurred, autumn, an ever-present friend, surreptitiously paints over. In the quiet parlance of color, sound, and smell; the seed of a new beginning, the grand ceremonious closing of life lived enfolds and enchants our very essence. There is a conspicuous change in the color of the foliage. There is the sound of the leaves beneath our intrusive feet. Less noticeable, but just as effective, there are the smells. I know autumn mostly by its smell, not by its color, but perhaps by its feel. It is truly a fascinating time, a time of wonder and leisure spent in old memories of pulling out moth-eaten sweaters to run outside just in time to leap into a neatly fresh bed of raked leaves. Wet, musty… lovely fall leaves. Autumn… it is an action word, a sentence unto itself!
