The world is speaking loudly now, raucous and sibilant and
joyful. It isn’t shouting and roaring, like it will in October, when
exclamations bring showers of red and gold, but it is somewhere above a stage
whisper. When I walk past the drying grasses their rustling makes me look twice
– I imagine only a clumsy, scuffling woodchuck could make such a racket. But
there’s no waddling round body, just the shushing grasses declaring fall.
The trees, too, are speaking – the maples are becoming stiff
and dry, while the willows are lightening with age, almost silver in the sun.
Corn husks are beginning to whisper in the fields, and even the sumacs have a
voice.
This is the special time of year, too, when late summer
layers on early fall, and all things happen at once. The grasses whisper while
the cartbirds mew and the waxwings squeak in the tree tops. The crickets are
noisy, and the bumblebees hum about the goldenrod. The jays are squawking with
the crows, and the river continues to babble. Now leaves, too, are crunching
underfoot.
It’s more than the sounds, too. The greatest variety of
texture and color, I think, happens now. Because of all the rain we are still lush, the soft grass underfoot and the beeches and apples and birch
keep their deep green. But the Virginia creeper has started to burn red,
with the sumac, and the maples are beginning to become sere and gold and
orange. The still-green apples have yellow and pink baubles on their branches. The goldenrod is still is powdery yellow, while the very first of it
has begun to petrify in crispy browns. The sun is warm where it hits, but the
breeze is chilly and bare fingers search for pockets on a walk.
There is abundance everywhere, and warmth, which brings a
slow relaxation. But there is also the morning and evening chill that suggests a
happy urgency, and a coziness. September is the most luxurious month of the year, here in Vermont, anyway.
