October in the Raggedy Garden

            October. Its always been the month that I love best. And look how the setting sun glows, turning everything into sunshine and shadow. The morning sun, in October is weak, and cool and misty. The afternoon sun is brassy and blinding, but,  oh! The setting sun can make you cry from its beauty and loveliness.  The star filled nights, too. Especially now, in the dark of the moon , when the nights are frosty and clear. You can see the magnitude of the stars, immeasurable, uncountable, so far away, looking so close. It seems you could reach up and grab one.

                Sometimes even I, Raggedy Garden dweller that I am, follow the road, in October. Old New England roads that wander to a time gone by, with only the trees and the birds, and the squirrels. Only the deer and the bears and the turkeys. Only the fallen leaves, the ruts and the rocks. They beckon me to follow them to Octobers past. Young Octobers, young love,  a rainy wedding night in the pacific northwest. Fun Halloweens, before they turned evil, when we roamed in cold Minnesota starshine, dressed like pilgrim girls and Indian braves, and came home glowing with happiness, health and a bag full of candy. Octobers when you could rake a pile of leaves and have a bonfire with them and breathe in that smokey October smell. Octobers with new babies. Octobers with snowstorms. October, that month of every thing .

        The October road might lead to town. An old New England town, with a brick mill building, a dam on the river, where power is made, a cozy restaurant, two hundred year old houses, and children and old folks walking in the street. Or it might lead to a pond, surrounded by birches and oaks and maples, the mirrored reflection flung down at their feet. Perhaps it will bring you to a barn. A weathered and shabby building with the roof falling in and the windows broken, the dooor hanging askew. Some other October it was filled with fagrant hay, boucolic cows, farming implements and kittens. They are all still here, you know. You have to look with October eyes.

          Rainy October days. Yes! I'll take them. The colors glow in the fog and the mist rises and swirls. The rain drops dimple the ponds and the smoke puffs out of many chimneys.The garden looks seer and empty. The hops vine rattles its brown fragile flowers in the wind. The swing, too, creaks, empty and forlorn in the October gusts. The goldfinches and sparrows crowd the bird feeder and peck the grit in the drive. This October night the rain thunders on the roof, and streams down the windows. Inside, the fire crackles in the stove, coffe steams in my cup, a candle flickers and I dream with a book open in my lap.

          After the rain, the sun comes with its prisms and pearls, every rain soaked branch, leaf ,blade of grass, lies quivering beneath the rays. October, full of grace and beauty, full of beginings and endings, full of color and darkness. May you always have an October heart, wild and free and warm and sheltering.

     Humble thanks to Robin Ashley for these more than beautiful October pictures.