Raw November

After weeks of hills bursting in vibrant autumnal colors under gentle skys, and specatacular star laden nights, it is raw November.

Coincident with man decreed daylight savings time, the progression of season conspires, deprives light.

Forty more dawns come later and later, forty more sunsets earlier and earlier, forty more nights longer and longer.

Apple tree, laden in Summer, wears a handful of apples stubbornly clinging to rain soaked branches.

It’s butternut neighbor, nourishing fewer and fewer branches the past few years, succumbs to feeding fungus; a harbinger that, as some of their companions already have, limbs will wither until wind or heavy snow dashes them to the ground.

Be this our only image of the year, one’s mood could jeopardize. Mindfullness of all seasons evidences that fungus, branches and apples process to soil, flowers, and trees.

When light without diminishes, spirit within augments, makes us conscious that just as dark implies light, freezing drops crystallize to flakes, somber clouds clarify to limitless blue skies.

For some, each dawn, one day closer to cherished Winter, for others, one day closer to glorious Spring.