Days grow shorter shadows lengthen naked branches of my favorite oak trees skeletons of former glory snake across the sky. last leaves hold on, holding out last rays of dying light paint the sky like the inside of a seashell –coral, peach, magenta, violet sculptural beauty of distant trees silhouettes against the growing dark another year draws to a close
an accumulation of leaf litter cover sidewalks and yards what will become of all the dead and dying? their brilliant colors once shimmered in the autumn afternoons faded into crumpled brown washed away by December rains sinking back into the earth from whence they came some float down drainage ditches into the nearest creek sink to the bottom of the river bed, last lying place of many a lucky few continue to surf the current past houses, vineyards cow pastures and old quarries out to sea
Pacific stretching over a third of the earth final resting place of leaves, diatoms, sharks and ships vast and foreign waters deep mysteries wrapped within mysteries await discovery maybe next year This year is coming to an end running out of time space shrinks in the darkness distilled to the essentials forget everything else
I close my eyes, listen to the sunset sound like a seashell humming life slipping past cars over damp streets waves of people rushing home, shopping gathering food, friends visit a dying relative, the long night blankets our lives in mystery wraps us in dormancy makes strange the ordinary whispering dreams of another year.
What is a year? a moment, breath stars flickering in the sky 12 moons bring in the tide and push it out again a slice of life trimmed off floating down river to a butterfly or a baby a year is everything the whole world coming into its own bubbling up, flowing over a whole cycle of days growing long, then short again pea vines sprouted, grown, flowered, then withered and died: all of life in a nutshell
The year is coming to an end but signs have already started — a new one is on its way sprouts poking their thin green heads through the thatch ready to make hay in summer afternoons rising up from the quiet gifts of the earth seeds of the new year planted by the old carrying the message of what was into what will become
Minoa Heaviland
This article appears in Through Mark Larson’s Lens 2024.