Autumn
A season of change to be savored rather than survived; a ginkgo truth awaiting the word; a now-you-see-it moment in the passing of yet another year Story by Seth Terrell Photos by David Moore On the last day of the world, I would plant a tree. – W.S. Merwin
S
I.
easons are not years. And the most hopeful and wisest among us measure time by them. Seasons are temporary phases, holdovers. They are liminal spaces wherein something shall come and something else shall come to pass. They are modest and forgiving intervals in which life’s newest lessons are ripe on the vine and the old heartbreaks have grown brittle; any moment now they break away and dwindle down to a soil ready to reclaim them, a ground ready to refine them. We do not bow down to seasons in the same way we are often marked and weighed down by years. After all, seasons are meant to be experienced rather than survived, savored rather than endured. Autumn is nature’s sleight of hand, the now-you-see-it to winter’s now-youdon’t. Our eyes fix on the vibrant colors of hickories and maples, the sorrel and yellow, russet and burnt orange, then it goes, the earth creeping into deeper sleep. Autumn is a mindset. Autumn is the memory of what was. It is the soul’s season. Find your footing somewhere on the back side of Sand Mountain or Georgia Mountain or Brindley or Wyeth. Cast your gaze like a well-spun fishing line,
Seen from the bridge on Martling Road, Scarham Creek runs through autumn-tinged woods on its rocky course down Sand Mountain. out over the waters of this slinking stretch of Tennessee River. Shape the clouds into poems. Count the stubborn pines as they, in autumn, hold to their green like the last colors on earth. Remember the ancients. Know your people, know yourself – know yourself. Taste the world as it was, as it is – the persimmon barely ripe, the cider beginning to sweeten, deeper south in the county, the golden hayfields and the tides of burnished corn, their
tassels waving like a million tiny flags of surrender, reaching for all we cannot see. Tell yourself it is good. Make a promise. Speak a name. Say a prayer. Cry and laugh. Dream. II.
W
hen I was younger and restless and a bit wild, I went looking for autumn in the backcountry of southwest Virginia. Seven hours from home and fresh out of
AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2021
57
