In a few weeks, these leaves will be off the trees and my walk will be in areas where the sky is more visible and where the wind will feel harsher.  At the moment the trees are half and half, and only a hard frost will finish off the summer plumage.  The changing seasons always make me feel there is forward movement, even if it is to the same season I have seen every year and will again next year.  They never are the same and neither am I.

But God is.

I love this poem written by Mary Baker Eddy, in girlhood, in a maple grove:

AUTUMN

Quickly earth’s jewels disappear;

The turf, whereon I tread,

Ere autumn blanch another year,

May rest above my head.

Touched by the finger of decay

Is every earthly love;

For joy, to shun my weary way,

Is registered above.

The languid brooklets yield their sighs,

A requiem o’er the tomb

Of sunny days and cloudless skies,

Enhancing autumn’s gloom.

The wild winds mutter, howl, and moan,

To scare my woodland walk,

And frightened fancy flees, to roam

Where ghosts and goblins stalk.

The cricket’s sharp, discordant scream

Fills mortal sense with dread;

More sorrowful it scarce could seem;

It voices beauty fled.

Yet here, upon this faded sod, 

—O happy hours and fleet, —

When songsters’ matin hymns to God

Are poured in strains so sweet,

My heart unbidden joins rehearse,

I hope it’s better made,

When mingling with the universe,

Beneath the maple’s shade.