one october

The sun is sinking on October 1. It’s early evening, so the sun is not really setting, it is just riding low and throwing that October evening look into the back yard. The shadows are long and comically distorted. The entire yard is shadowed, save a single broad beam of bright light illuminating the woodpile. The remaining Hickory tree is precisely half in the sunshine and half in the shade - there is a shadow line running up the center of the trunk – and therefore casts no shade of its own.
The first of October is a big deal. This is the month of color. But the color happens long before the leaves lose their chlorophyll. The angle of the sun makes everything richer. The October blue sky is deeper than deep, creating a dimension on which the fluffy clouds float that is unlike any other time of year. The green leaves are greener as if they surge just before they die and expose their true colors – what they’ve really been all this time.
But for now, the show is green and blue and white with a yellowish play of evening sunshine.